THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE 

NATURAL    PHILOSOPHY 
OF   LOVE 


BY 

REMY  DE  GOURMONT 

Translated  with  a  Postscript  By 

EZRA  POUND 


BON  I  AND  LIVE  RIGHT 

Publishers  New  York 


THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


COPYRIGHT,  1922,  By 

BONI   AND  LlVERIGHT,   INC. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I.    THE  SUBJECT  OF  AN  IDEA n 

Love's  general  psychology. — Love  according  to  natural 
laws. — Sexual  selection. — Man's  place  in  Nature. — 
Identity  of  human  and  animal  psychology. — The 
animal  nature  of  love. 

II.  THE  AIM  OF  LIFE 17 

The  importance  of  the  sexual  act. — Its  ineluctable 
character. — Animals  who  live  only  to  reproduce  them- 
selves.— The  strife  for  love,  and  for  death. — Females 
fecundated  at  the  very  instant  of  birth. — The  main- 
tenance of  life. 

III.  SCALE  OF  SEXES 22 

Asexual  reproduction. — Formation  of  the  animal  col- 
ony.— Limits  of  asexual  reproduction. — Coupling. — 
Birth  of  the  sexes. — Hermaphrodism  and  partheno- 
genesis.— Chemical  fecundation. — Universality  of  par- 
thenogenesis. 

IV.  SEXUAL  DIMORPHISM 31 

1.  Invertebrates:    formation    of   the   male. — Primitiv- 
ity   of   the  female. — Minuscule   males:    the  bonellie. — 
Regression    of    the    male    into    the    male    organ:    the 
cirripedes. — Generality     of     sexual     dimorphism. — Su- 
periority of  the  female  in  most  insect  species. — Excep- 
tions.— Numeric  dimorphism. — Female  hymenoptera. — 
Multiplicity    of    her    activities.— Male's    purely    sexual 
role.— Dimorphism  of  ants  and  termites. — Grasshoppers 
and  crickets.  —  Spiders.  —  Coleoptera.  —  Glow-worm. — 
Cochineal's  strange  dimorphism. 

V.   SEXUAL   DIMORPHISM 43 

2.  Vertebrates: — Unnoticeable  in  fish,  saurians,  reptiles. 
— The  bird  world. — Dimorphism  favourable  to  males: 

v 


1163473 


CHAPTER  PACK 

the  oriole,  pheasants,  the  ruff. — Peacocks  and  turkey- 
cocks. — Birds  of  paradise. — Moderate  dimorphism  of 
mammifers. — Effects  of  castration  on  dimorphism. 

VI.   SEXUAL  DIMORPHISM: 49 

3.  Vertebrates  (Continued) : — Man  and  woman. — 
Characteristics  and  limits  of  human  dimorphism. — Ef- 
fects of  civilization. — Psychologic  dimorphism. — The 
insect  world  and  the  human. — Modern  dimorphism, 
basis  of  the  pair. — Solidarity  of  the  human  pair. — Di- 
morphism and  polygamy. — The  pair  favours  the  fe- 
male.— Sexual  aesthetics.— Causes  of  the  superiority  of 
feminine  beauty. 

VII.  SEXUAL  DIMORPHISM  AND  FEMINISM 59 

Inferiority   and  superiority   of   the   female   as  shown 

hi  animal  species. — Influence  of  feeding  on  the  produc- 
tion of  sexes. — The  female  would  have  sufficed. — 
Feminism  absolute,  and  moderate. — Pipe-dreams:  elimi- 
nation of  the  male  and  human  parthenogenesis. 

VIII.  LOVE-ORGANS       64 

Sexual  dimorphism  and  parallelism. — Sexual  organs  of 
man    and    of    woman. — Constancy    of    sexual    paral- 
lelism in  the  animal  series. — External  sexual  organs  of 
placentary    mammifera. — Form    and    position    of    the 
penis.— The  penial  bone. — The  clitoris. — The  vagina. — 

The  teats. — Forked  prong  of  marsupials. — Sexual  organs 
of  reptiles. — Fish  and  birds  with  a  penial  organ. — 
Genital  organs  of  arthropodes. — Attempt  to  classify 
animals  according  to  the  disposition,  presence,  ab- 
sence of  exterior  organs  for  reproduction. 

IX.  THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 76 

i.  Copulation:  Vertebrates. — Its  very  numerous  va- 
rieties and  its  specific  fixity. — The  apparent  immoral- 
ity of  Nature. — Sexual  ethnography. — Human  mechan- 
ism.— Cavalage. — The  form  and  duration  of  coupling 
in  divers  mammifers.— Aberrations  of  sexual  surgery, 
the  ampallang. — Pain  as  a  bridle  on  sex. — Maidenhead. 
— The  mole. — Passivity  of  the  female. — The  ovule, 
psychological  figure  of  the  female. — Mania  of  attribut- 
ing human  virtues  to  animals. — The  modesty  of  ele- 
phants.— Coupling  mechanism  in  whales,  seals,  tor- 
toises.— In  certain  ophidians  and  in  certain  fish. 

vi 


CHAPTER  PACT 

X.   THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 91 

2.  Copulation    (Continued) — Arthropodes. — Scorpions. 
—Large  aquatic  crustaceans. — Small  crustaceans. — The 
hydrachne.  —  Scutilary.  —  Cockchafer.  —  Butterflies.  — 
Flies,  etc. — Variation  of  animals'  sexual  habits. 

XI.  THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 98 

3.  Of  birds  and  fish. — Males  without  penis. — Coupling 
by  simple  contact. — Salacity  of  birds. — Copulation  of 
batrachians:  accoucheur  toad,  aquatic  toad,  earth  toad, 
pipa    toad. — Foetal     parasitism. — Chastity     of    fish. — 
Sexes    separated     in     love. — Onanistic     fecundation. — 
Cephalopodes,  the  spermatophore. 

XII.   THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 107 

4.  Hermaphrodism. — Sexual  life  of  oysters. — Gastero- 
podes. — The    idea    of    reproduction    and    the    idea    of 
pleasure. — Mechanism      of      reciprocal      reproduction: 
helices. — Spintrian  habits. — Reflection  on  hermaphrod- 
ism. 

XIII.  THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE xia 

5.  Artificial  fecundation. — Disjunction  of  the  secret- 
ing apparatus  from  the  copulating  apparatus. — Spiders. 
— Discovery  of  their  copulative  method. — Brutality  of 
the  female. — Habits  of  the  epeire. — The  argyronete. — 
The  tarantula. — Exceptions:    the   reapers. — Dragonflies 
(libellule) .— Dragonflies  (demoiselle)  virgins  and  "jou- 
vencelle." — Picture  of  their  love  affairs. 

XIV.  THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 120 

6.  Cannibalism  in  sex. — Females  who  devour  the  male, 
those  who  devour  the  spermatophore. — Probable  use  of 
these    practices. — Fecundation    by    the    whole    male. — 
Loves    of    the    white    foreheaded    dectic. — The    green 
grasshopper. — The  Alpine  analote. — The  ephippigere. — 
Further  reflections  on  the  cannibalism  of  sex. — Loves  of 
the  praying  mantis. 

XV.   THE  SEXUAL  PARADE 137 

Universality  of  the  caress,  of  amorous  preludes. — Their 
role  in  fecundation. — Sexual  games  of  birds. — How 
cantharides  caress. — Males'  combats. — Pretended  com- 
bats of  birds. — Dance  of  the  tetras. — Gardener  bird. — 
His  country  house. — His  taste  for  flowers. — Reflections 

vii 


V 


on  the  origin  of  his  art. — Combats  of  crickets. — Parade 
of  butterflies. — Sexual  sense  of  orientation.— The  great- 
peacock  moth. — Animals'  submission  to  orders  of  Na- 
ture.— Transmutation  of  physical  values. — Rutting 
calendar. 

XVI.  POLYGAMY 141 

Rarity  of  monogamy. — Taste  for  change  in  animals. — 
Roles  of  monogamy  and  polygamy  in  the  stability  or 
instability  of  specific  types. — Strife  of  the  couple 
against  polygamy. — Couples  among  insects. — Among 
fish,  batrachians,  saurians. — Monogamy  of  pigeons,  of 
nightingales. — Monogamy  in  carnivora,  in  rodents. — 
Habits  of  the  rabbit.— The  ichneumon. — Unknown 
causes  of  polygamy. — Rarity  and  superabundance  of 
males. — Polygamy  in  insects. — In  fish. — In  gallinaceae, 
in  web-footed  birds.— In  herbivora. — The  antelope's 
harem. — Human  polygamy. — How  it  tempers  the 
couple  among  civilized  races. 

XVH.  LOVE  AMONG  SOCIAL  ANIMALS 157 

Organization  of  reproduction  among  hymenoptera. — 
Bees.— Wedding  of  the  queen. — Mother  bee,  cause  and 
consciousness  of  the  hive. — Sexual  royalty. — Limits  of 
intelligence  among  bees. — Natural  logic  and  human  logic. 
— Wasps. — Bumble-bees. — Ants.— Notes  on  their  habits. 
— Very  advanced  state  of  their  civilization. — Slavery 
and  parasitism  among  ants. — Termites. — The  nine 
principal  active  forms  of  termites. — Great  age  of  their 
civilization. — Beavers. — Tendency  of  industrious  ani- 
mals to  inactivity. 

XVHI.  THE  QUESTION  or  ABERRATIONS 172 

Two  sorts  of  sexual  aberration.— Sexual  aberrations 
of  animals. — Those  of  men. — Crossing  of  species. — 
Chastity. — Modesty. — Varieties  and  localizations  of 
sexual  bashfulness. — Artificial  creation  of  modesty. — 
Sort  of  modesty  natural  to  all  females. — Cruelty. — 
Picture  of  carnage. — The  cricket  eaten  alive. — Habits 
of  carabes. — Every  living  creature  is  a  prey. — Necessity 
to  kill  or  to  be  killed. 

XIX.  INSTINCT 184 

Instinct. — Can  one  oppose  it  to  intelligence? — Instinct 
in  man. — Primordiality  of  intelligence. — Instinct's  con- 

viii 


CHAPTER  PAG1 

servative  role. — Modifying  role  of  intelligence. — Intelli- 
gence and  consciousness. — Parity  of  animal  and  hu- 
man instinct. — Mechanical  character  of  the  instinctive 
act. — Instinct  modified  by  intelligence. — Habit  of  work 
creates  useless  work. — Objections  to  the  identification  of 
instinct  and  intelligence  taken  from  life  of  insects. 

XX.  TYRANNY  OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM 194 

Accord  and  discord  between  organs  and  acts. — Tarses 
and  sacred  scarab. — The  hand  of  man. — Mediocre  fit- 
ness of  sexual  organs  for  copulation. — Origin  of  "lux- 
uria." — The  animal  is  a  nervous  system  served  by 
organs. — The  organ  does  not  determine  the  aptitude. — 
Man's  hand  inferior  to  his  genius. — Substitution  of  one 
sense  for  another. — Union  and  role  of  the  senses  in 
love. — Man  and  animal  under  the  tyranny  of  the 
nervous  system. — Wear  and  tear  of  humanity  com- 
pensated by  acquisitions. — Man's  inheritors. 

TRANSLATOR'S  POSTSCRIPT     .........    206 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  PRACTICAL  WORKS  CONSULTED    .          .    220 


THE  NATURAL 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  SUBJECT  OF  AN  IDEA 

Love's  general  psychology. — Love  according  to  natural 
laws. — Sexual  selection. — Man's  place  in  Nature. — 
Identity  of  human  and  animal  psychology. — The 
animal  nature  oj  love. 

THIS  book,  which  is  only  an  essay,  because  its  subject 
matter  is  so  immense,  represents,  nevertheless,  an  ambi- 
tion: one  wanted  to  enlarge  the  general  psychology  of 
love,  starting  it  in  the  very  beginning  of  male  and  female 
activity,  and  giving  man's  sexual  life  its  place  in  the 
one  plan  of  universal  sexuality. 

Certain  moralists  have,  undeniably,  pretended  to  talk 
about  "love  in  relation  to  natural  causes,"  but  they  were 
profoundly  ignorant  of  these  natural  causes:  thus  Senan- 
cour,  whose  book,  blotted  though  it  be  with  ideology, 
remains  the  boldest  work  on  a  subject  so  essential  that 
nothing  can  drag  it  to  triviality.  If  Senancour  had  been 
acquainted  with  the  science  of  his  time,  if  he  had  only 
read  Reaumur  and  Bonnet,  Buff  on  and  Lamarck;  if  he 
ii 


THE  NATURAL 

had  been  able  to  merge  the  two  ideas,  man  and  animal 
into  one,  he,  being  a  man  without  insurmountable  preju- 
dices, might  have  produced  a  still  readable  book.  The 
moment  would  have  been  favorable.  People  were  be- 
ginning to  have  some  exact  knowledge  of  animals' 
habits.  Bonnet  had  proved  the  startling  relationships  of 
animal  and  vegetable  reproduction;  the  essential  principle 
of  physiology  had  been  found;  the  science  of  life  was 
brief  enough  to  be  clear;  one  might  have  ventured  a 
theory  as  to  the  psychological  unity  of  the  animal  series. 
Such  a  work  would  have  prevented  numerous  follies 
in  the  century  then  beginning.  One  would  have  become 
accustomed  to  consider  human  love  as  one  form  of  num- 
berless forms,  and  not  perhaps,  the  most  remarkable 
of  the  lot,  a  form  which  clothes  the  universal  instinct 
of  reproduction;  and  its  apparent  anomalies  would  have 
found  a  normal  explanation  amid  Nature's  extravagance. 
Darwin  arrived,  inaugurated  a  useful  system,  but  his 
views  were  too  systematized,  his  aim  too  explanatory 
and  his  scale  of  creatures  with  man  at  the  summit,  as 
the  culmination  of  universal  effort,  is  of  a  too  theologic 
simplicity.  Man  is  not  the  culmination  of  nature,  he  is 
in  Nature,  he  is  one  of  the  unities  of  life,  that  is  all. 
He  is  the  product  of  a  partial,  not  of  total  evolution; 
the  branch  whereon  he  blossoms,  parts  like  a  thousand 
other  branches  from  a  common  trunk.  Moreover,  Dar- 
win, truckling  to  the  religiose  pudibundery  of  his  race, 
has  almost  wholly  neglected  the  actual  facts  of  sex; 
this  makes  his  theory  of  sexual  selection,  as  the  principle 
of  change,  incomprehensible.  But  even  if  he  had  taken 
account  of  the  real  mechanism  of  love,  his  conclusions, 

12 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

possibly  more  logical,  would  still  have  been  inexact,  for 
if  sexual  selection  has  any  aim  it  can  be  but  conservation. 
Fecundation  is  the  reintegration  of  differentiated  ele- 
ments into  a  unique  element,  a  perpetual  return  to 
the  unity. 

It  is  not  particularly  interesting  to  consider  human 
acts  as  the  fruits  of  evolution,  for  upon  animal  branches 
as  clearly  separate  as  those  of  insect  and  mammifer  one 
finds  sexual  acts  and  social  customs  sensibly  analogous, 
if  not  identical  in  many  points. 

If  insects  and  mammifers  have  any  common  ancestor, 
save  the  primordial  jelly,  there  must  indeed  have  been 
very  different  potentialities  in  its  amorphous  contours 
to  lead  it  here  into  being  bee  and  there  into  being 
giraffe.  An  evolution  leading  to  such  diverse  results  has 
interest  only  as  a  metaphysical  idea,  psychology  can 
get  from  it  next  to  nothing  of  value. 

We  must  chuck  the  old  ladder  whose  rungs  the  evo- 
lutionists ascended  with  such  difficulty.  We  will  imagine, 
metaphorically,  a  centre  of  life,  with  multiple  lives  di- 
verging from  it;  having  passed  the  unicellular  phase,  we 
will  take  no  count  of  hypothetic  subordinations.  One 
does  not  wish  to  deny,  one  wishes  rather  not  to  deny, 
either  general  or  particular  evolutions,  but  the  genealo- 
gies are  too  uncertain  and  the  thread  which  unites  them  ^^  * 
too  often  broken  :<£what,  for  example,  is  the  origin  of 
birds,  organisms  which  seem  at  once  a  progress  and  a 
retrogression  from  the  mammifer?;  On  reflection,  one 
will  consider  the  different  love-mechanisms  of  all  the 
dioicians  as  parallel  and  contemporary. 

Man  will  then  find  himself  in  his  proper  and  rather 
13 

<jy 


THE  NATURAL 

indistinct  place  in  the  crowd,  beside  the  monkeys, 
rodents  and  bats.  Psychologically,  one  must  quite  often 
compare  him  with  insects,  marvellous  flowering  of  the 
life  force.  And  what  clarity  from  the  process,  lights 
showering  in  from  all  corners.  Feminine  coquetry,  the 
flight  before  the  male,  the  return,  the  game  of  yes  and 
no,  the  uncertain  attitude  seeming  at  once  cruel  and 
amorous,  and  not  peculiar  to  the  female  human?  Not 
at  all.  Celimene  is  of  all  species,  and  heteroclite  above 
all;  she  is  both  mole  and  spider,  she  is  sparrow  and 
cantharide,  she  is  cricket  and  adder.  A  celebrated  author 
in  a  play  called,  I  think,  La  Fille  Sauvage,  represents 
feminine  love  as  aggressive.  An  error.  The  female 
attacked  by  the  male  thinks  always  of  retreat,  she 
never,  never  attacks,  save  in  certain  species  which 
appear  to  be  very  ancient  and  which  have  persisted 
to  our  time  only  by  prodigies  of  equilibrium.  Even 
there  one  must  make  reserves,  for  when  one  sees  the 
female  aggressive,  it  is  perhaps  at  the  second  or  fourth 
phase  of  the  game,  not  at  the  beginning.  The  female 
sleeps  until  the  male  arouses  her,  then  she  gives  in,  plays, 
or  takes  flight.  The  virgin's  reserve  before  man  is  but 
a  very  moderate  bashfulness  if  compared  with  the  pell- 
mell  flight  of  a  young  mole  intacta. 

This  is  but  one  fact  of  a  thousand.  There  is  not 
one  way  of  instinctive  man  with  a  maid  which  is  not 
findable  in  one  or  other  animal  species;  this  is  perfectly 
comprehensible  seeing  that  man  is  an  animal,  submitted 
to  the  essential  instincts  which  govern  all  animality; 
there  being  everywhere  the  same  matter  animate  with 
the  same  desire:  to  live,  to  perpetuate  life.  Man's  supe- 
14 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

riority  is  in  the  immense  diversity  of  his  aptitudes. 
Animals  are  confined  to  one  series  of  gestures,  always 
the  same  ones,  man  varies  his  mimicry  without  limit; 
but  the  target  is  the  same,  and  the  result  is  the  same, 
copulation,  fecundation  and  eggs. 

Belief  in  liberty  has  been  born  from  the  diversity  of 
human  aptitude,  from  man's  power  to  reach  the  neces- 
sary termination  of  his  activity  by  different  routes,  or  to 
dodge  this  termination  and  suicide  in  himself  the  species 
whose  future  he  bears.  It,  this  liberty,  is  an  illusion 
difficult  not  to  have,  an  idea  which  one  must  shed  if 
one  wants  to  think  in  a  manner  not  wholly  irrational, 
but  it  is  recompensingly  certain  that  the  multiplicity  of 
possible  activities  is  almost  an  equivalent  of  this  liberty. 
Doubtless  the  strongest  motive  always  wins,  but  today's 
stronger  is  tomorrow's  weaker,  hence  a  variety  of  human 
gaits  feigning  liberty,  and  practically  resulting  therein. 
Free  will  is  only  the  faculty  of  being  guided  successively 
by  a  great  number  of  different  motives.  When  choice  is 
possible,  liberty  begins,  even  though  the  chosen  act  is 
rigorously  determined  and  when  there  is  no  possibility 
of  avoiding  it.  Animals  have  a  smaller  liberty,  restricted 
in  proportion  as  their  aptitudes  are  more  limited;  but 
when  life  begins  liberty  begins.  The  distinction,  from 
this  view-point,  between  man  and  animal  is  quantitative, 
and  not  qualitative.  One  must  not  be  gulled  by  the 
scholastic  distinction  between  instinct  and  intelligence; 
man  is  as  full  of  instincts  as  the  insect  most  visibly 
instinctive;  he  obeys  them  by  methods  more  diverse, 
that  is  all  there  is  to  it. 

If  it  is  clear  that  man  is  an  animal,  it  is  also  clear 


THE  NATURAL 

that  he  is  a  very  complex  one.  One  finds  in  him  most 
of  the  aptitudes  which  are  distributed  one  by  one  among 
beasts.  There  is  hardly  one  of  his  habits,  of  his  virtues, 
of  his  vices  (to  use  the  conventional  terms)  which  can 
not  be  found  either  in  an  insect,  a  bird  or  a  mammifer: 
monogamy,  adultery,  the  "consequences";  polygamy, 
polyandry,  lasciviousness,  laziness,  activity,  cruelty, 
courage,  devotion,  any  of  these  are  common  to 
animals,  but  each  as  the  quality  of  an  whole  species. 
In  the  state  of  differentiation  to  which  superior  and 
cultivated  human  species  have  attained,  each  individual 
forms  surely  a  separate  variety  determined  by  what  is 
called,  abstractly,  "the  character."  This  individual 
differentiation,  very  marked  in  mankind,  is  less  marked 
in  other  animal  species.  Yet  we  note  quite  distinct 
characters  in  dogs,  in  horses  and  even  in  birds  of  the 
same  race.  It  is  quite  probable  that  all  bees  have  not 
the  same  character,  since,  for  example,  they  are  not  all 
equally  prompt  to  use  their  stings  in  analogous  circum- 
stances. Even  there  the  difference  between  man  and 
his  brothers-in-life  and  in  sensibility  is  but  a  difference 
of  degree. 

"Solidarity"  is  but  an  empty  ideology  if  one  limit  it 
to  human  species.  There  is  no  abyss  between  man  and 
animal;  the  two  domains  are  separated  by  a  tiny  rivulet 
which  a  baby  could  step  over.  We  are  animals,  we  live 
on  animals,  and  animals  live  on  us.  We  both  have  and 
are  parasites.  We  are  predatory,  and  we  are  the  living 
prey  of  the  predatory.  And  when  we  follow  the  love  act, 
it  is  truly,  in  the  idiom  of  theologians,  more  bestiarum. 
Love  is  profoundly  animal;  therein  is  its  beauty. 
16 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  AIM  OF  LIFE 

The  importance  of  the  sexual  act. — Its  ineluctable 
character. — Animals  who  live  only  to  reproduce  them- 
selves.— The  strife  for  love,  and  for  death. — Females 
fecundated  at  the  very  instant  of  birth. — The  main- 
tenance of  life. 

WHAT  is  life's  aim?    Its  maintenance. 

But  the  very  idea  of  an  aim  is  a  human  illusion.  There 
is  neither  beginning,  nor  middle,  nor  end  in  the  series  of 
causes.  What  is  has  been  caused  by  what  was,  and  what 
will  be  has  for  cause  the  existent.  One  can  neither  con- 
ceive a  point  of  rest  nor  a  point  of  beginning.  Born  of 
life,  life  will  beget  life  eternally  She  should,  and  wants 
to.  Life  is  characterized  on  earth  by  the  existence  of 
individuals  grouped  into  species,  that  is  to  say  having 
the  power,  a  male  being  united  with  a  female,  to  repro- 
duce a  similar  being.  Whether  it  be  the  internal  con- 
joining of  protozoaires,  or  hermaphrodite  fecundation, 
or  the  coupling  of  insects  or  mammifers,  the  act  is  the 
same:  it  is  common  to  all  that  lives,  and  this  not  only 
to  animals  but  to  plants,  and  possibly  even  to  such  min- 
erals as  are  limited  by  a  non-varying  form.  Of  all 
possible  acts,  in  the  possibility  that  we  can  imagine,  the 
17 


THE  NATURAL 

sexual  act  is,  therefore,  the  most  important  of  all  acts. 
Without  it  life  comes  to  an  end,  and  it  is  absurd  to 
suppose  its  absence,  for  in  that  case  thought  itself 
disappears. 

Revolt  is  useless  against  so  evident  a  necessity.  Our 
finikin  scruples  protest  in  vain;  man  and  the  most  dis- 
gusting of  his  parasites  are  the  products  of  an  identical 
sexual  mechanism.  The  flowers  we  have  strewn  upon 
love  may  disguise  it  as  one  disguises  a  trap  for  wild 
beasts;  all  our  activities  manoeuvre  along  the  edge  of 
this  precipice  and  fall  over  it  one  after  another;  the 
aim  of  human  life  is  the  continuation  of  human  life. 

Only  in  appearance  does  man  escape  this  obligation 
of  Nature.  He  escapes  as  an  individual,  and  he  submits 
as  a  species.  The  abuse  of  thought,  religious  prejudices, 
vices  sterilize  a  part  of  humanity;  but  this  fraction  is 
of  merely  sociological  interest;  be  he  chaste  or  volup- 
tuary, miserly  or  prodigal  of  his  flesh,  man  is  in  his  whole 
condition  subject  to  the  sexual  tyranny.  All  men  do 
not  reproduce  their  species,  neither  do  all  animals;  the 
feeble  and  the  late-comers  among  insects  die  in  their 
robe  of  innocence,  and  many  nests  laboriously  filled  by 
courageous  mothers  are  devastated  by  pirates  or  by 
the  inclemency  of  the  sky.  Let  the  ascetic  not  come 
boasting  that  he  has  freed  his  blood  from  the  pressure 
of  desire;  the  very  importance  which  he  ascribes  to  his 
victory  but  affirms  the  same  power  of  the  life-will. 

A  young  girl,  before  the  slightest  love  affair,  will, 

if  she  is  healthy,  confess  naively  that  she  "wants  to 

marry  to  have  children."    This  so  simple  formula  is  the 

legend  of  Nature.    What  an  animal  seeks  is  not  its  own 

18 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

life  but  reproduction.  Doubtless  many  animals  seem, 
during  a  relatively  long  existence,  to  have  but  brief 
sexual  periods,  but  one  must  make  allowance  for  the 
period  of  gestation.  In  principle  the  sole  occupation 
of  any  creature  is  to  renew,  by  the  sex  act,  the  form 
wherewith  it  is  clothed.  To  this  end  it  eats,  to  this 
end  builds.  This  act  is  so  clearly  the  aim,  unique  and 
definite  that  it  constitutes  the  entire  life  of  a  very  great 
number  of  animals,  which  are,  notwithstanding,  ex- 
tremely complex. 

The  ephemera  is  bora  in  the  evening,  and  copulates, 
the  female  lays  eggs  during  the  night,  both  are  dead  in 
the  morning,  without  even  having  looked  at  the  sun. 
These  little  animals  are  so  little  destined  for  anything 
else  save  love  that  they  have  not  even  mouths.  They 
eat  not,  neither  do  they  drink.  One  sees  them  hover- 
ing in  clouds  above  the  water,  among  the  reeds.  The 
males,  although  more  numerous  than  the  females,  per- 
form a  multiple  duty,  and  fall  exhausted.  The  purity 
of  such  a  life  is  to  be  admired  in  many  butterflies:  the 
silk -moths,  heavy  and  clumsy,  shake  their  wings  for  an 
instant  at  birth,  couple  and  die.  The  Great  Peacock 
or  Oak  Bombyx,  much  larger  than  they,  eats  no  more 
than  they  do:  yet  we  see  him  traverse  leagues  of  country 
in  his  quest  of  the  female.  He  has  only  a  rudimentary 
proboscis  and  a  fake  digestive  apparatus.  Thus  his  two 
or  three  days'  existence  passes  without  one  egoistic  act. 
The  struggle  for  life,  much  vaunted,  is  here  the  struggle 
to  give  life,  the  struggle  for  death,  for  if  they  can  live 
three  days  in  search  of  the  female  they  die  as  soon  as 
the  fecundation  is  accomplished. 


THE  NATURAL 

Among  all  solitary  bees,  scolies,  masons,  bembex,  and 
anthopores,  the  males  born  soonest,  range  about  the  nests 
awaiting  the  birth  of  the  females.  As  soon  as  these 
appear  they  are  seized  and  fecundated,  knowing,  thus, 
life  and  love  in  the  same  shiver.  The  female  osmies 
and  other  bees  are  keenly  watched  by  the  males  who 
nab  and  mount  them  as  they  emerge  from  the  natal  tube, 
the  hollow  stalk  of  a  reed,  flying  at  once  with  them  into 
the  air  where  the  love-feast  is  finished.  Then  while 
the  male,  drunk  with  his  work,  continues  his  death- 
flight,  the  female  feverishly  hollows  the  house  of  her 
offspring,  partitions  it,  stores  the  honey  for  the  larvae, 
lays,  whirls  for  an  instant  and  dies.  The  year  following: 
the  same  gestures  above  the  same  reeds  split  by  the  reed- 
gatherers;  and  thus  in  years  following,  the  insect  per- 
mitted never  the  least  design  save  the  conservation  of 
one  fragile  form;  brief  apparition  over  flowers. 

The  sitaris  is  a  coleopterous  parasite  in  the  nests  of 
the  anthopore.  Copulation  takes  place  on  hatching. 
Fabre  noticed  a  female  still  in  her  wrappings,  whom  a 
male  already  free  was  helping  to  get  loose,  waiting  only 
the  appearance  of  the  extremity  of  the  abdomen,  to  hurl 
himself  thereupon.  The  sitaris'  love  lasts  one  minute, 
long  season  in  a  short  life:  the  male  drags  on  for  two 
days  before  dying,  the  female  lays  on  the  very  spot 
where  she  has  been  fecundated,  dies,  having  known 
nothing  but  the  maternal  function  in  the  strictest  limit 
of  her  birthplace. 

No  one  has  ever  seen  the  female  palingenia.  This 
butterfly  is  fecundated  before  even  getting  rid  of  her 
nymph's  corset,  she  dies  with  her  eyes  still  shut,  mother, 
20 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

at  once,  and  infant  in  swaddling  clothes.  Moralists  love 
bees  from  whom  they  distil  examples  and  aphorisms. 
They  recommend  us  work,  order,  economy,  foresight, 
obedience  and  divers  virtues  other.  Abandon  yourself 
boldly  to  labour:  Nature  wills  it.  Nature  wills  every- 
thing. She  is  complacent  to  all  the  activities;  to  our 
imaginings  there  is  no  analogy  that  she  will  refuse,  not 
one.  She  desires  the  social  constructions  of  bees;  she 
desires  also  the  Life  All  Love  of  the  "Great  Peacock," 
of  the  osmie,  of  the  sitaris.  She  desires  that  the  forms 
she  has  created  shall  continue  indefinitely,  and  to  this 
end  all  means  are,  to  her,  good.  '  ..t  if  she  presents  us 
the  laborious  example  of  the  bee,  she  does  not  hide  from 
us  the  polyandrous  example,  nor  the  cruel  amours  of 
the  mantis.  There  is  not  in  the  will  to  live  the  faintest 
trace  of  our  poor  little  human  morality.  If  one  wishes 
an  unique  sole  morality,  that  is  to  say  an  universal  com- 
mandment, which  all  species  may  listen  to,  which  they 
can  follow  in  spirit  and  in  letter,  if  one  wishes  in  short 
to  know  the  "aim  of  life"  and  the  duty  of  the  living, 
it  is  necessary,  evidently,  to  find  a  formula  which  will 
totalize  all  the  contradictions,  break  them  and  fuse  them 
into  a  sole  affirmation.  There  is  but  one,  we  may  repeat 
it,  without  fear,  and  without  allowing  any  objection:  the 
aim  of  life  is  life's  continuation. 


21 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  III 

SCALE  OF  SEXES 

Asexual  reproduction. — Formation  of  the  animal  colony. 
— Limits  of  asexual  reproduction. — Coupling. — 
Birth  of  the  sexes. — Hermaphrodism  and  partheno- 
genesis.— Chemical  fecundation. — Universality  of  par- 
thenogenesis. 

THE  primitive  mode  of  reproduction  is  asexual,  or  what 
one  will  so  consider  provisorily,  in  comparison  with  more 
complex  mechanism.  In  the  first  living  forms  there  are 
neither  sexual  organs  nor  differentiated  sexual  elements. 
The  animal  reproduces  itself  by  scissiparity  or  by  bud- 
ding; the  individual  divides  itself  in  two  parts,  or  a 
protuberance  develops,  forms  a  new  being  and  then 
separates. 

Scissiparity  is  an  inexact  term,  for  the  division  is 
transversal,  and  the  two  parts  far  from  equal;  it  occurs 
in  protozoaires,  and  further  in  worms,  star-fish  and  polyps. 
Budding  is  common  to  protozoaires,  infusoria,  ccelen- 
terata,  to  fresh-water  polyps  and  to  nearly  all  vegetables. 
A  third  primitive  mode,  sporulation,  consists  in  the  pro- 
duction inside  the  organism  of  particular  cells,  spores, 
which  separate  and  become  individuals;  this  occurs  in 
protozoaires,  as  well  as  in  ferns,  algae  and  mushrooms. 

The  first  two  modes,  division  and  budding,  serve  also 

22 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

for  the  formation  of  animal  colonies,  when  the  new 
individual  retains  a  point  of  contact  with  the  generating 
individual.  It  is  by  this  notion  of  colony  that  one 
explains  complex  beings,  and  even  superior  animals,  in 
considering  them  as  reunions  of  simple  primitive  beings 
which  have  differentiated  themselves  and  still  retained 
a  solidarity,  sharing  the  physiological  work  between  them. 
Colonies  of  protozoaires  are  formed  of  individuals  having 
identical  functions,  living  in  perfect  equality,  despite  the 
hierarchy  of  position;  colonies  of  metazoaires  are  com- 
posed of  specialised  members  whose  separation  may  be  a 
cause  of  death  for  the  total  individual.  There  is  then, 
in  the  latter  case,  a  new  being  composed  of  distinct  ele- 
ments which,  retaining  a  certain  essential  autonomy, 
have  become  the  organs  of  a  new  entity. 

The  first  living  organisms  formed  their  hierarchies 
thus:  individual  unicellular,  or  plastide;  group  of  plas- 
tides  or  meride.  The  merides,  as  the  protozoaires,  can 
reproduce  themselves  asexually,  or  by  division  or  budding. 
They  may  separate  completely  or  remain  attached  to 
their  generator.  If  they  remain  attached  one  has 
mounted  a  step  and  attained  the  zoide.  Thence,  by 
colonies  of  zoides  one  gets  individuals  still  more  complex, 
called  denies.  None  of  these  terms  is  much  more  than 
a  convenience  for  memory.  The  nomenclature  stops,  as 
does  the  progression,  at  a  certain  moment,  for  the  evo- 
lution has  its  limit,  its  finality,  as  does  even  the  milieu 
in  which  life  continues  to  evolve.  One  might  say  that 
heaving  up  from  the  obscure  vital  centre,  the  new  animal- 
shoots  branch  upward  until  they  knock  their  heads  upon 
an  ideal  or  imaginary  roof  which  prevents  any  further 
23 


THE  NATURAL 

climbing.  This  is  the  death  of  the-  species,  and  Nature 
contemptuously  abandoning  her  work,  begins  to  make 
yet  another  mould  of  the  initial  ooze,  to  derive  from  it 
a  new  form.  The  dream  of  an  unlimited  transformation 
of  actual  species  is  pure  chimaera;  they  will  disappear 
one  by  one,  according  to  their  order  of  primogeniture, 
according  to  their  faculty  for  adapting  themselves  to 
the  changing  milieu,  and  one  might  foresee,  if  the  earth 
lasts,  in  a  distant  time  an  unimaginable  fauna  replacing 
the  present  fauna,  and  even  replacing  man. 

Man  is  a  metazoaire,  that  is  to  say  an  animal  with  dif- 
ferentiated pluricellules,  like  the  sponge,  the  wheel  ani- 
mals, and  the  annelids.  He  belongs  to  the  artizoaire 
series:  a  head,  belly,  back,  bilateral  symmetry;  to  the 
vertebrate  branch:  internal  skeleton,  cartilaginous  and 
osseous;  to  the  class  of  mammifers,  to  the  sub-class  of 
placentaires;  to  the  group  of  primates  not  far  from  the 
chiroptera  (bats)  and  the  rodents. 

In  regard  to  the  life-transmitting  mechanism  the  ani- 
mals are  divided  somewhat  differently.  On  one  side  bud- 
ding and  division,  or  scissiparity,  is  prolonged  rather 
far  into  the  metazoaire  series  concurrent  with  sexual 
reproduction;  on  the  other  hand  there  are,  among  pro- 
tozoaires,  phenomena  of  coupling,  unions  of  cellules 
which  resemble  veritable  fecundation  and  perform  its 
role;  without  the  nuclear  regeneration  which  is  the  aim 
and  consequence,  neither  segmentation  nor  budding  can 
take  place,  at  least  not  indefinitely.  In  sum,  the  repro- 
duction of  beings  is  always  sexual;  only  in  the  one  case, 
the  protozoaires,  it  is  produced  by  non-differentiated 
elements;  and  in  the  other,  the  metazoaires,  by  differen- 
24 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

tiated  elements,  a  male  and  a  female.  If  one  clips  off 
bits  of  a  sponge,  a  hydra,  one  obtains  as  many  new 
individuals,  which  when  they  have  grown  one  may  again 
divide,  and  so  on  repeatedly,  but  not  indefinitely.  At 
a  variable  instant,  after  a  certain  number  of  generations 
by  fragmentation,  senescence  appears  among  the  so  pro- 
duced individuals;  the  clipped  morsels  remain  inert. 
Thus  this  sort  of  artificial  virgin  birth  has  a  limit,  as  has 
normal  parthenogenesis,  and  in  order  that  the  individuals 
may  regain  their  parthenogenetic  force  one  must  give 
them  time  to  regenerate  their  cellules  by  the  coupling 
which  fecundates  them. 

Fecundation  is  in  all  cases,  doubtless,  merely  a  re- 
juvenation, thus  considered  it  is  uniform  not  only 
throughout  the  animal  series,  but  throughout  the  vege- 
table. One  ought  to  experiment  in  slip-cutting,  and 
discover  at  what  point  the  slip  cut  from  a  slip  begins  to 
diminish  in  vitality.  Coupling  and  fecundation  have  the 
same  result:  it  is  necessary  that  cellules  A  unite  with 
cellules  B  (macro-nucleus  and  micro-nucleus  among 
protozoaires;  ovule  and  spermatozoid  among  meta- 
zoaires),  in  order  that  the  organism  may  usefully 
exteriorize  a  part  of  its  substance.  When  the  too  com- 
plex organism  has  lost  the  primitive  faculty  of  segmenta- 
tion, it  makes  use,  directly,  to  reproduce  itself,  of  certain 
cellules  differentiated  for  that  purpose:  it  is  these  cellules 
united  into  a  whole,  which  reintegrate  and  give  birth 
to  a  double  of  the  generating  individual  or  individuals. 
From  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the  sexual  scale  the  new 
being  springs  invariably  from  a  duality.  The  multi- 
25 


THE  NATURAL 

plication  takes  place  only  in  space.    In  time  the  product 
is  a  contraction,  two  giving  one. 

Scissiparity  is  compatible  with  the  existence  of  separate 
sexes,  as  in  the  starfish.  This  fantastic  animal  with  no 
instrument  save  its  suckers  opens  oysters,  envelops  them 
with  its  stomach  which  it  unbellies  (vomits),  devours 
them.  It  is  not  less  curious  in  reason  of  its  variety  of 
reproductive  mode,  serving  itself  of  sexual  apparatus,  or 
budding,  or  casting  an  arm  which  becomes  a  new  creature. 
Thus  it  is  difficult  to  class  animals  according  to  their 
manner  of  reproduction;  hermaphrodism  is  another 
block.  This  mode  is  doubtless  primitive,  since  it  is  of 
the  type  of  protozoaire  coupling,  but  it  is  greatly  com- 
plicated when  it  persists,  for  example  up  to  the  moment 
where  it  disappears  in  the  mollusk  series,  whereof  some 
possess  so  luxurious  a  love-organism.  The  simple  and 
very  naive  form,  that  in  which  the  sperm  and  the  eggs 
are  produced  simultaneously  inside  the  same  individual, 
is  found  only  in  inferior  organisms.  Normal  partheno- 
genesis belong  equally  to  summary  and  to  complicated 
animals,  to  wheel-animals  and  to  bees.  Among  arthro- 
pod es,  that  is  to  say  among  insects  in  general,  the  sexes 
are  always  separate,  save  in  certain  tardigrade  arachnids, 
but  these  are  the  ones  which  offer  the  finest  cases  of 
parthenogenesis,  generation  without  aid  of  the  male. 
The  term  need  not  be  taken  literally.  For  as  there  is  no 
indefinite  scissiparity  without  coupling,  there  is  no  un- 
limited parthenogenesis  without  fecundation:  the  female 
is  fecundated  for  several  generations  which  transmit  this 
power,  but  there  comes  a  day  when  the  female  who  has 
not  encountered  a  male  gives  birth  to  males  and  females. 
26 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

They  couple  and  produce  females  parthenogenetically  en- 
dowed. This  has  been  for  long  time  a  mystery, — it  is 
still  a  mystery,  for  side  by  side  with  normal  partheno- 
genesis there  is  irregular  parthenogenesis,  there  are  cases 
where  non-fecundated  eggs  behave  exactly  as  fecundated 
eggs,  without  anyone's  knowing  why. 

The  virgin-begotten  cycle  of  plant-lice  is  famous,  that 
of  wheel-animals  not  less  entertaining.  The  males, 
smaller  than  the  females,  live  but  two  or  three  days, 
couple  and  die.  The  fecundated  females  lay  eggs  whence 
come  nothing  but  females,  unless  the  eggs  are  subjected 
to  a  temperature  above  18  degrees  (centigrade);  above 
that  the  eggs  hatch  out  males.  Between  the  periods  of 
coupling  there  are  long  stretches  of  virgin-birth,  nothing 
but  females  producing  females,  until  the  temperature  per- 
mits a  male  hatch.  In  two  years  the  plant  louse  runs 
through  ten  or  twelve  parthenogeneses ;  in  July  of  the 
second  year,  there  appear  winged  individuals,  these  are 
still  female,  but  double  size,  and  they  lay  two  sets  of  eggs, 
whereof  the  smaller  hatch  male  (the  male  is  three  or  four 
times  smaller  than  the  female),  the  larger  eggs  hatch 
female;  there  is  coupling  and  the  cycle  begins  again. 

For  long  people  believed  the  plant  louse  truly  andro- 
gynous. Reaumur  and  Bonnet,  having  seen  isolated 
plant-lice  reproduce  themselves  were  convinced  of  this, 
when  Trembley,  a  man  of  genius,  celebrated  also  for  his 
observations  of  hydra,  threw  out  the  idea:  Who  knows 
whether  a  coupling  of  these  lice  does  not  fecundate  them 
for  several  generations?  He  had  discovered  the  basis  of 
parthenogenesis.  Facts  upheld  him.  Bonnet  described 
27 


THE  NATURAL 

the  male  and  female,  and  noted  even  the  genital  ardour 
of  this  sticking  leaf-louse,  this  milch-cow  of  the  ants. 

Parthenogenesis  is  a  sign-post.  Nothing  more  clearly 
demonstrates  the  importance  of  the  male  or  the  precision 
of  his  function.  The  female  appears  to  be  the  whole 
show,  without  the  male  she  is  nothing.  She  is  the  ma- 
chine and  has  to  be  wound  up  to  go.  The  male  is  merely 
the  key.  People  have  tried  to  obtain  fecundation  by 
false  keys.  Eggs  of  sea-anemones,  and  star-fish  have 
been  hatched  by  contact  with  exciting  chemicals,  acids, 
alkalines,  sugar,  salt,  alcohol,  ether,  chloroform,  strych- 
nine gas,  carbonic  acid.  But  one  has  never  been  able 
to  bring  these  scientific  larvae  to  maturity,  and  every- 
thing leads  one  to  believe  that  if  one  succeeded,  and  that 
if  these  artificial  beings  were  capable  of  reproduction,  it 
would  be  but  for  a  limited  period.  This  provoked 
parthenogenesis  is  neither  more  nor  less  interesting  than 
the  normal.  It  is  doubtless  abnormal,  but  abnormal 
parthenogenesis  is  not  infrequent  in  nature;  eggs  of  the 
bombyx,  of  star-fish,  and  of  frogs,  hatch  sometimes  with- 
out fecundation,  and  very  probably  because  they  have 
accidentally  come  up  against  the  very  stimulant  which 
the  excellent  experimenters  have  lavished  on  them. 
Whether  sperm  acts  as  an  "excitant"  or  as  fecundator, 
the  action  is  no  easier  to  understand  by  one  label  than 
by  another.  The  queen  bee  lays  both  fecundated  and 
non-fecundated  eggs;  the  first  hatch  female,  the  second 
invariably  male,  here  the  male  element  would  seem  to 
be  the  product  of  parthenogenesis  and  the  female  to  re- 
quire previous  fecundation.  In  contrast,  among  plant- 
lice,  the  generations  of  female  continue  for  nearly  two 
28 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

years.  There  is  an  order  in  these  things,  as  in  all 
things,  but  it  is  not  yet  apparent;  one  notes  only,  that 
however  long  and  varied  be  the  parthenogenetic  period, 
it  is  limited  somewhere  by  the  necessity  of  the  female 
principle  being  united  with  the  male  principle.  After 
all,  hereditary  fecundation  is  no  more  extraordinary  than 
particular  fecundation,  it  is  a  mode  of  perpetuating  life 
which  the  exercise  of  one's  reason  should  make  one 
consider  as  perfectly  normal. 

One  ought,  at  the  end  of  this  summary  chapter,  to  be 
courageous  enough  to  say  that  fecundation,  as  vulgarly 
understood,  is  merely  an  illusion.  Taking  man  and 
woman  (or  no  matter  what  dioic  metazoaire)  the  man 
does  not  fecundate  the  woman;  what  happens  is  at  once 
more  mysterious  and  more  simple.  From  the  male  A, 
the  great  Male,  and  from  the  great  Female  B  are  born 
without  any  fecundation  whatever,  spontaneously,  little 
males  a  and  little  females  b.  These  little  males  are 
called  spermatozoides,  and  the  little  females,  ovules; 
it  is  between  these  new  creatures,  between  these  spores, 
that  the  fecundating  union  occurs.  One  then  observes 
that  a  and  b  resolve  themselves  into  a  third  animal  x, 
which  by  natural  growth  becomes  either  A  or  B.  Then 
the  cycle  begins  again.  The  union  between  A  and  B  is 
merely  a  preparation;  A  and  B  are  nothing  but  channels 
carrying  a  and  b,  carrying  them  often  far  beyond  them- 
selves. Like  the  plant-lice  or  drones,  the  mammifers 
called  man  are  subject  to  alternate  generation,  one 
parthenogenesis  always  separating  the  veritable  con- 
junction of  the  differentiated  elements.  Coupling  is 
not  fecundation;  it  is  merely  the  mechanism;  its  utility 
29 


THE  NATURAL 

is  merely  in  that  it  puts  two  parthenogenetic  products 
into  relation.  This  relation  occurs  inside  the  female,  or 
outside  the  female  (as  in  case  of  fishes) ;  the  milieu  has 
an  importance  of  fact,  not  of  principle. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER  IV 

SEXUAL   DIMORPHISM 

I.  Invertebrates:  formation  of  the  male. — Primitivity 
of  the  female. — Minuscule  males:  the  bonellie. — Re- 
gression of  the  male  into  the  male  organ:  the  cirri- 
pedes. — Generality  of  sexual  dimorphism. — Superior- 
ity of  the  female  in  most  insect  species. — Exceptions. — 
Numeric  dimorphism.  — Female  hymenoptera. — Multi- 
plicity of  her  activities. — Male's  purely  sexual  role. — 
Dimorphism  of  ants  and  termites. — Grasshoppers  and 
crickets. — Spiders. — Coleoptera. — Glow-worm. — Cochi- 
neal's strange  dimorphism. 

i.  INVERTEBRATES. — At  a  moment  fairly  undecided  in 
the  general  evolution  the  male  organ  specializes  into  the 
male  individual.  Religious  symbolisms  may  or  might 
have  been  intended  to  mean  this.  The  female  is  primi- 
tive. At  the  third  month,  the  human  embryo  has  ex- 
ternal uro-genital  organs  clearly  resembling  the  female 
organs.  To  arrive  at  complete  female  estate  they  need 
undergo  but  a  very  slight  modification;  to  become  male 
they  have  to  undergo  a  considerable  and  very  complex 
transformation.  The  external  genital  organs  of  the 
female  are  not,  as  has  been  often  said,  the  product  of 
an  arrested  development;  quite  the  contrary,  the  male 
organs  undergo  a  supplementary  development,  which  is 


THE  NATURAL 

moreover  useless,  for  the  penis  is  a  luxury  and  a  danger: 
the  bird  who  does  without  it  is  no  less  wanton  thereby. 

One  finds  general  proof  of  the  female's  primitivity  in 
the  extreme  smallness  of  certain  male  invertebrates,  so 
tiny  indeed  that  one  can  only  consider  them  as  auton- 
omous masculine  organs,  or  even  as  spermatozoides. 
The  male  of  the  syngames  (an  internal  parasite  of  birds) 
is  less  a  creature  than  an  appendix;  he  remains  in  con- 
stant contact  with  the  organs  of  the  female,  stuck 
obliquely  into  her  side,  and  justifying  the  name  "two- 
headed  worm"  which  has  been  given  to  this  wretched  and 
duplex  animalculus.  The  female  bonellie  is  a  sea  worm 
shaped  like  a  sort  of  cornucopia  sack  fifteen  centimetres 
in  length:  the  male  is  represented  by  a  minuscule  filament 
of  about  one  or  two  millimetres,  that  is  to  say  about  one- 
thousandth  her  size.  Each  female  supports  about  twenty. 
These  males  live,  first  in  the  oesophagus,  then  descend  into 
the  oviduct  where  they  impregnate  the  eggs.  Only  their 
very  definite  function  clears  them  from  the  charge  of 
being  parasites;  in  fact  they  were  long  supposed  to  be 
parasites,  while  men  sought  vainly  for  the  male  of  the 
prodigious  bonellie. 

Side  by  side  with  males  who  are  merely  individualized 
sexual  organs,  one  sees  males  who  have  lost  nearly  all 
organs  save  the  male  organ  itself.  Certain  hermaphro- 
dite cirripedes  (mollusks  attached  by  a  peduncle  [stalk] ) 
cling  as  parasites  to  the  coat  of  other  cirripedes:  whence 
a  diminution  of  volume,  a  regression  of  ovaries,  abolition 
of  nutritive  functions;  the  stalk  takes  root  in  the  living, 
nourishing  milieu.  But  one  organ,  the  male  one,  per- 
sists in  these  diminished  cirripedes,  and  takes  on  enor- 
32 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

mous  proportions,  absorbing  the  whole  of  the  animal. 
With  only  a  slight  further  change  one  would  see  the 
transformation  of  male  into  male  organ  completely  ac- 
complished, as  one  does,  moreover,  in  the  hydraria. 
Become  again  an  integral  part  of  an  organism  from 
which  it  had  formerly  separated  to  become  an  individual, 
the  male  merely  returns  to  its  origins  and  clearly  certifies 
what  they  were. 

The  bonellie,  which  is  one  of  the  most  definite  ex- 
amples of  dimorphism,  is  also  an  example  of  the  singular 
feminism  which  one  normally  finds  in  nature.  For 
feminism  reigns  there,  especially  among  inferior  species 
and  in  insects.  It  is  almost  only  among  mammifers  and 
in  certain  groups  of  birds  that  the  male  is  equal  or 
superior  to  the  female.  One  would  say  that  he  has  slowly 
attained  a  first  place  not  intended  by  nature  for  him. 
It  is  probable  that,  relieved  of  all  care,  after  the  fecunda- 
tion, he  has  had  more  leisure  than  the  female  wherein 
to  develop  his  powers.  It  is  also  possible,  and  more 
probable,  that  these  extremely  diverse  cases  of  resem- 
blance and  dissemblance  are  due  to  causes  too  numerous 
and  too  varied  for  us  to  seize  their  logical  sequence.  The 
facts  are  obvious:  the  male  and  the  female  differ  nearly 
always,  and  differ  often  profoundly.  Many  insects 
vulgarly  supposed  to  be  different  species  are  but  males 
and  females  of  one  race  seeking  each  other  for  mating. 
It  needs  some  knowledge  to  recognize  a  pair  of  black- 
birds, the  male  black  all  over,  and  the  female  brown- 
backed  with  grey  throat  and  russet  belly. 

While  hermaphrodism  demands  a  perfect  resemblance 
of  individuals — save  in  cases  like  the  cirripedes,  where 
33 


THE  NATURAL 

there  is  a  male  supplementary  parasite — the  separation 
of  the  sexes  leads,  in  principle,  to  dimorphism,  the  role 
of  the  male,  his  modes  of  activity  differ  from  those  of  the 
female;  a  difference  found  also  among  dioic  plants. 
Hemp  is  a  well  known  case,  although  the  taller  shoots 
which  the  peasants  call  male  are  in  exact  contrary,  the 
females.  The  small  garden-loving  nettle  has  two  sexes 
on  the  same  stalk;  the  greater  nettle,  found  in  unculti- 
vated land,  is  dioic:  the  male  stalk  has  very  long  flop- 
ping leaves  and  flowers  hanging  along  the  stem;  the 
leaves  and  flowers  of  the  female  stalk  are  short  and  stand 
almost  upright.  Here  the  dimorphism  is  not  in  favour 
of  the  female,  but  impartial. 

Of  insects  the  female  is  nearly  always  the  superior 
individual.  It  is  not  this  marvellous  small  creature, 
nature's  divergent  and  minuscule  king  who  offers  us  the 
spectacle  of  the  bilhargie,  spearwort,  whereof  the  female, 
mediocre  blade,  lives,  like  a  sword  sheathed  in  the  hollow 
stomach  of  the  male.  This  timid  life  and  its  perpetual 
amours  would  horrify  the  bold  female  scarabcea,  adroit 
chalicodomes,  cold  wise  lycoses,  and  proud,  terrible, 
amazonian  mantes.  In  the  insect  world  the  male  is  the 
frail  elegant  sex,  gentle  and  sober,  with  no  employment 
save  to  please  and  to  love.  To  the  female  the  heavy 
work  of  digging,  of  masonry,  and  the  danger  of  hunt 
and  of  war. 

There  are  exceptions,  but  found  chiefly  among  para- 
sites, among  the  degraded,  like  the  xenos  which  lives 
without  distinction  upon  wasps,  coleoptera,  and  nevrop- 
tera.  The  male  is  provided  with  two  large  wings;  the 
female  has  neither  wings,  feet,  eyes,  nor  antennae;  is  a 
34 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

small  worm.  After  metamorphosis  the  male  emerges, 
flies  a  little,  then  returns  to  the  female  who  has  remained 
inside  the  nymphal  envelope,  and  fecundates  her  in  her 
wrappings. 

Other  exceptions,  this  time  normal,  are  furnished  by 
butterflies,  that  is  to  say  by  a  sort  of  insect  which  is 
very  placid,  and  which,  at  least  in  the  winged  form,  is 
addicted  neither  to  hunting  nor  to  any  trade  or  business 
function.  One  gives  the  name  "psyche"  to  a  very  small 
butterfly  which  flutters  out  rather  clumsily  in  the  morn- 
ing; it  is  the  male.  The  female  is  a  huge  worm,  fifteen 
times  as  long,  ten  times  as  fat.  The  lovers  are  in  the 
proportion  of  a  cock  to  a  cow.  Here  the  feminism  is 
wholly  ludicrous.  There  is  the  same  disproportion  in 
the  mulberry  bombyx,  of  which  the  female  is  much 
heavier  than  the  male;  she  flies  with  difficulty,  a  passive 
beast  who  submits  to  a  fecundation  lasting  several  hours; 
likewise  in  the  autumn  butterfly,  cheimatobia,  the  male 
sports  two  pairs  of  fine  wings  on  a  spindle  body,  the 
female  is  a  gross  fat  keg  with  rudimentary  wings,  inca- 
pable of  flight;  she  climbs  difficultly  into  trees  on  whose 
buds  her  caterpillar  feeds  itself;  in  the  case  of  another 
butterfly  which  one  calls,  absurdly,  the  orgye,  the  male 
has  all  the  characteristics  of  lepidoptera,  the  female  is 
almost  wingless  with  a  heavy  and  swollen  body  and  a 
carriage  about  as  pleasing  as  that  of  a  monstrous  wood- 
louse;  there  is  the  same  disproportion  in  the  graceful, 
agile  and  delicate  liparis,  known  as  the  zig-zag  because 
of  his  wing-markings;  he  would  hardly  discover  his  mate 
without  aid  from  instinct,  she  being  a  whitish  beast  with 
heavy  abdomen  ruminating  motionless  in  the  tree-bark. 
55 


THE  NATURAL 

Neighbouring  species,  the  monk,  the  brown-rump,  the 
gold-rump  show  hardly  any  sexual  differences. 

Numeric  dimorphism  follows  dimorphism  of  mass;  the 
family  of  one  sort  of  butterfly  of  the  Marquesas  Islands 
is  composed  of  one  male  and  of  five  females  all  different, 
so  different  that  one  long  supposed  them  distinct  species. 
Here  the  advantage  is  obviously  on  the  side  of  the  male 
lord  of  this  splendid  harem.  Nature,  profoundly  ignorant 
of  our  sniveling  ideas  of  justice  and  equality,  vastly 
pampers  certain  animal  species,  while  showing  herself 
harsh  and  indifferent  to  others;  now  the  male  is  favoured, 
now  the  female,  upon  whom  the  greatest  mass  of  superior- 
ities is  heaped,  and  upon  whom  likewise  all  the  cruelties 
and  disdains.  The  hymenoptera  include  bees,  bumble- 
bees, wasps,  scolies,  ants,  masons,  sphex,  bembex,  osmies, 
etc.  The  place  of  these  among  insects  is  analogous  to 
that  of  the  primates  or  even  of  man  among  mammifers. 
But  while  woman,  not  animally  inferior  to  her  male, 
remains  below  him  in  nearly  all  intellectual  activities, 
among  the  hymenoptera  the  female  is  both  brain  and  the 
tool,  the  engineer,  the  working-staff,  the  mistress,  mother, 
and  nurse  unless,  as  in  the  case  of  bees,  she  casts  upon 
a  third  sex  all  duties  not  purely  sexual.  The  males  make 
love.  The  male  of  the  tachyte,  a  sort  of  wasp  rather 
like  the  sphex,  is  about  eight  times  smaller  than  the 
female,  but  he  is  a  very  ardent  small  lover,  marvellously 
equipped  for  the  amorous  quest;  his  citron-coloured 
diadem  is  made  of  eyes,  is  a  girdle  of  enormous  eyes,  a 
lighthouse  whence  he  explores  his  horizon,  ready  to  fall 
like  an  arrow  upon  the  loitering  female.  When  fecun- 
dated, the  she-tachyte  constructs  a  cellular  nest  which  she 
36 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

packs  with  the  terrible  mantis,  of  whom  she  is  the  always 
victorious  enemy;  for  knowing  by  incomprehensible  in- 
stinct whether  she  is  about  to  lay  a  male  or  a  female 
egg,  she  augments  or  diminishes,  according  to  its  sex, 
the  larder  for  the  larva:  the  tiny  male  is  allotted  a  dwarf 
provision. 

The  male  hornet  is  notably  smaller  than  the  female, 
and  the  neuter  hornet  still  smaller.  The  male  pine 
lophyr  is  black,  the  female  yellow.  The  male  of  the 
chalicodome  or  mason-bee  is  russet,  the  far  more  beauti- 
ful female  is  a  fine  velvety  black  with  deep  violet  wings. 
While  the  male  loafs  and  bumbles  she  artfully  and  pa- 
tiently rears  the  big-domed  clay  nest  where  her  offspring 
pass  their  larvae  days.  This  bee  lives  in  colonies  but  the 
labour  is  individual,  each  doing  her  work  without  bother- 
ing about  that  of  her  neighbour,  unless  it  be  to  rob  her 
or  spoil  her  construction,  as  in  a  civilization  not  un- 
known to  us.  The  female  mason  is  armed,  but  by  no 
means  aggressive. 

In  many  hymenoptera  only  the  female  carries  the 
sword,  as  in  the  case  of  the  gilded  wasp,  gold-striped  over 
blue  or  red,  who  can  project  a  long  needle  from  her 
abdomen ;  the  female  philanthe,  who  is  carnivorous,  while 
the  puerile  unarmed  male  lives  upon  flower-pollen.  Not 
disdaining  this  natural  dessert,  the  female  philanthe  will 
attack  the  nectar-loaded  bee  with  her  great  dart,  stab 
him  and  pump  out  his  crop.  One  may  see  the  ferocious 
small  animal  knead  the  dead  bee  for  half  an  hour,  squeeze 
him  like  a  lemon,  drink  him  out  like  a  gourd.  Charm- 
ing and  candid  habits  of  these  winged  topazes  whirring 
among  the  flowers!  Fabre  has  excused  this  sadique 
37 


THE  NATURAL 

gourmandizing:  the  philanthe  kills  bees  in  order  to  feed 
her  larvae,  who  have,  however,  so  great  a  repugnance 
for  honey  that  they  die  upon  contact  with  it;  it  is  there- 
fore out  of  sheer  maternal  devotion  that  she  intoxicates 
herself  with  this  poison!  All  things  are,  in  nature,  pos- 
sible. But  it  might  not  be  unreasonable  to  say  that  if 
the  larvae  of  the  philanthe  hate  honey,  it  is  because  their 
greatly  honey-loving  mother  has  never  allowed  them  a 
drop  of  it. 

One  of  the  rare  cases  of  hymenoptera  where  the 
female  appears  inferior  to  the  male  is  the  mutille  or 
ant-spider.  The  male  is  larger,  has  wings  and  lives  on 
flowers.  The  female  is  apteral,  but  provided  with  a 
noisy  apparatus  for  attracting  the  male's  attention.  The 
male  of  the  cynips  of  the  oak-apple,  the  terminal  cynips, 
has  a  blond  body  with  large  diaphanous  wings,  the  brown 
and  black  female  is  wingless.  The  male  yellow  cimbex 
slender,  and  brown  with  a  spot  of  yellow,  is  so  different 
from  the  round  female  with  yellow  belly  and  black  head, 
that  they  were  long  thought  of  different  species. 

Ants  like  all  social  hymenoptera  are,  as  one  knows, 
divided  into  three  sexes,  winged  males  and  females  and 
wingless  neuters.  Fecundation  takes  place  in  the  air; 
the  lovers  fly  up,  join,  fall  enlocked,  a  golden  cloud  which 
the  death  of  the  males  disperses,  while  the  females,  losing 
their  wings,  re-enter  the  house  for  egg-laying.  The  workers 
or  neuters  are  generally  smaller,  as  noticeably  in  the  great 
red  wood-ants,  who  dig  their  shelters  in  stumps.  White 
ants  or  termites1  show  very  accentuated  dimorphism; 

1  These  are  nevroptera  or  pseudo-nevroptera,  but  their  habits 
bring  them  noticeably  near  to  social  hymenoptera. 

38 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

the  female  or  queen  having  a  head  almost  as  large  as  that 
of  a  bee,  a  belly  the  thickness  of  one's  finger,  long  in 
proportion,  and  growing  to  be  fifteen  times  as  large  as 
the  rest  of  her  body.  This  sexual  tub  lays  continuously 
without  any  let-up  at  the  speed  of  an  egg  per  second. 
The  male,  as  in  Baudelaire's  vision  of  the  giantess,  lives 
in  the  shadow  of  this  formidable  mountain  of  female 
power  and  luxury.  Among  the  termites  there  is  not  a 
fourth  sex  but  a  fourth  way  of  being  sexless.  There  are 
soldiers  as  well  as  workers,  the  soldiers  having  powerful 
mandibles  mounted  on  enormous  heads.  All  the  termite 
customs  are  extraordinary,  and  their  conic  nests  reach  a 
height  having  a  relation  to  them  that  a  house  five  or 
six  hundred  metres  high  would  have  to  us. 

Of  mosquitoes  and  maringouin  mosquitoes  and  all  in- 
sects of  that  sort,  the  females  alone  prick  and  suck  the 
blood  of  mammifers.  The  males  live  on  flowers  and 
tree-trunks.  One  sees  them  in  forest  alleys  and  clear- 
ings, moving  regularly  as  in  army  manoeuvres,  they  are 
scouting,  watching  for  females;  as  soon  as  a  male  has 
caught  one  he  seizes  her,  and  disappears  up  into  the  air 
where  the  union  is  accomplished.  Only  the  male  cricket 
has  a  noise-machine,  only  the  female  a  hearing  mechan- 
ism, situated  in  her  front  legs.  Likewise  it  is  the  male 
grasshopper  who  sounds.  A  love-call?  People  say  so, 
but  there  is  no  proof.  Grasshoppers  live,  male  and 
female  in  complete  promiscuity  lined  up  on  the  tree- 
bark;  such  a  quantity  of  music  is  unnecessary,  and 
moreover  if  the  female  grasshopper  isn't  deaf,  she  has 
an  almost  insensible  hearing.  It  is  probable  that  the  song 
of  insects  and  birds,  if  it  is  sometimes  a  love-call,  is 
39 


THE  NATURAL 

more  often  only  a  physiological  exercise,  at  once  neces- 
sary and  disinterested.  Fabre,  who  lived  all  his  life 
among  the  implacable  noises  of  the  Provencal  country- 
side, sees  in  "the  violin  of  the  locust,  in  the  bag-pipe  of 
the  tree-toad,  in  the  cymbals  of  the  cacan  only  a  means 
suitable  to  expressing  the  joy  of  living,  the  universal  joy 
which  each  animal  species  celebrates  in  its  own  fashion. * 
Why  then  is  the  female  mute?  It  is  certainly  absurd 
and  profoundly  useless  to  summon,  in  almost  uninter- 
rupted song,  from  mom  till  eve,  a  companion  whom  one 
sees  seated  beside  one  pumping  the  juice  out  of  a  plane- 
tree;  but  it  has  perhaps  not  always  been  so.  The  two 
sexes  may  have  had,  in  the  past,  habits  more  divergent. 
The  plane-tree  which  unites  them  in  the  same  feeding- 
ground  has  not  always  grown  in  Provence.  The  un- 
ending song  may  have  been  useful  at  a  time  when  the 
sexes  lived  separate,  and  may  have  remained  as  evidence 
of  ancient  customs.  It  is  moreover  a  commonly  observed 
fact  that  activities  long  survive  the  period  of  their 
utility.  Man  and  all  animals  are  full  of  maniac  gestures 
whose  movement  is  only  explicable  on  the  hypothesis  that 
it  had  once  a  different  intention. 

The  female  spider  is  nearly  always  superior  to  the 
male  in  size,  industry,  activity,  and  means  of  defence  and 
attack.  We  will  note  their  sexual  habits  later,  but  must 
observe  here  their  particular  cases  of  dimorphism.  The 
Madagascar  she-epeire  is  enormous,  very  handsome, 
black,  red,  silver  and  gold.  She  rigs  up  a  formidable 
web  in  her  tree,  near  which  one  sees  always  a  modest  and 
puerile  skein,  the  work  of  a  minuscule  male  keeping  an 

Souvenirs  entomologiques,  tome  V.  p.  256. 
40 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

anxious  eye  on  the  chance  of  sidling  up  to  his  terrible 
mistress,  and  risking  his  wedding-death.  The  argyronete 
or  water-spider,  returns  the  balance  to  the  male,  who  is 
fatter,  larger,  and  provided  with  longer  limbs. 

The  male  triumphs  again,  and  more  frequently,  among 
coleoptera.  The  nasicorn  scarab,  so  called  most  aptly 
because  he  carries  on  his  head  a  long  back-bending  arched 
horn,  has  all  his  chest  solidly  armoured;  the  female  has 
neither  horn  nor  cuirass.  Everyone  knows  the  flying- 
stag  or  lucane  (stag-beetle,  bull-fly),  enormous  coleop- 
tera which  flies  through  the  summer  evening  buzzing 
like  a  top.  He  is  feared  for  the  bold  appearance  of  his 
long  mandibles  which  branch  like  stag's  horns  and  which 
the  uninstructed  take  for  dangerous  pincers.  He  is  the 
male,  his  war-gear  pure  ornament,  as  he  lives  inoffen- 
sively by  sucking  tree-sap.  The  much  smaller  females 
are  devoid  of  warlike  apparatus,  they  are  very  few  in 
number,  and  it  is  in  the  excitement  of  searching  for  them 
that  the  male,  whose  life  is  short  and  who  knows  it, 
whirls  like  a  maniac,  and  bangs  himself  into  our  trem- 
bling ears.  Here  again  one  divines  animals  who  have 
changed  their  habits  more  quickly  than  their  organs. 
The  old  pirate  has  kept  his  daggers  and  axes,  but  aban- 
doned, no  one  knows  why,  to  vegetarian  diet,  he  has  lost 
all  power  to  use  them,  he  is  merely  a  stage-super.  But 
maybe  this  gear  impresses  the  female?  She  cedes  more 
willingly  to  this  hector  who  gives  her  the  illusion  of 
strength,  that  is  of  the  male's  beauty. 

The  glow-worm  is  a  real  worm,  but  a  larva  rather 
than  a  definitive  animal.  The  male  of  this  female  is  a 
perfect  insect,  provided  with  wings  which  he  uses  to 


THE  NATURAL 

seek  in  the  darkness  the  female  who  shines  more  brightly 
as  she  more  desires  to  be  looked  at  and  mounted.  There 
is  a  kind  of  lampyre  of  which  both  sexes  are  equally 
phosphorescent,  one  in  the  air,  the  male,  the  other 
on  the  ground  where  she  awaits  him.  After  coupling 
they  fade  as  lamps  when  extinguished.  This  lumi- 
nosity is,  evidently,  of  an  interest  purely  sexual. 
When  the  female  sees  the  small  flying  star  descend  to- 
ward her,  she  gathers  her  wits,  and  prepares  for  hypocrite 
defence  common  to  all  her  sex,  she  plays  the  belle  and 
the  bashful,  exults  in  fear,  trembles  in  joy.  The  fading 
light  is  symbolic  of  the  destiny  of  nearly  all  insects,  and 
of  many  animals  also;  coupling  accomplished,  their  rea- 
son for  being  disappears  and  life  vanishes  from  them. 
The  male  cochineal  has  a  long  body  with  very  delicate 
wings,  transparent  and  which  at  a  distance  look  like 
those  of  a  bee;  he  is  provided  with  a  sort  of  tail  formed 
of  two  silky  strands.  One  sees  him  flying  over  the  nopals, 
then  suddenly  alighting  on  a  female,  who  resembles  a  fat 
wood-louse  round  and  puffy,  twice  as  stout  as  the  male, 
wingless.  Glued  by  her  feet  to  a  branch,  with  her  pro- 
boscis stuck  into  it,  continually  pumping  sap,  she  looks 
like  a  fruit,  like  an  oak-apple  or  oak-gall  on  a  peduncle 
for  which  reason  Reaumur  called  her  picturesquely  the 
gall-insect.  In  certain  species  of  cocides  the  male  is  so 
small  that  his  proportion  is  that  of  an  ant  strolling  over 
a  peach.  His  goings  and  comings  are  like  those  of  an  ant 
hunting  for  a  soft  spot  to  bite,  but  he  is  seeking  the 
genital  cleft,  and  having  found  it,  often  after  long  and 
anxious  explorations,  he  fulfills  his  functions,  falls  off 
and  dies. 

42 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER  V 

SEXUAL  DIMORPHISM 

II.  Vertebrates: — Unnoticeable  in  fish,  saurians,  rep- 
tiles.— The  Bird  World. — Dimorphism  favourable  to 
males:  the  oriole,  pheasants,  the  ruff. — Peacocks  and 
turkey-cocks. — Birds  of  paradise. — Moderate  dimor- 
phism of  mammifers. — Effects  of  castration  on  dimor- 
phism. 

II.  VERTEBRATES. — Sexual  differences  are  generally 
unnoticeable  in  fish,  reptiles  and  saurians.  They  are 
accentuated  when  we  come  to  superior  vertebrates,  to 
birds  and  mammals,  but  without  ever  attaining  the  ex- 
treme difference  which  characterizes  a  great  number  of 
arthropodes.  In  birds  the  disparity  may  be  of  colouring, 
size,  or  length,  form  and  curliness  of  the  feathers;  among 
mammals,  of  shape,  hair,  beard  or  horns.  Sometimes 
the  female  bird  is  finer  and  stronger;  thus  stronger  and 
of  more  powerful  wing-spread  in  the  case  of  the  secre- 
tary, the  buzzard,  the  falcon,  the  ash-coloured  vulture 
and  many  birds  of  prey;  more  beautiful  as  in  the  Indian 
turnices.1  One  of  them,  the  gray  phalarope,  solves 
woman's  dream  in  favour  of  the  female,  leaving  her  the 
brilliant  colours;  the  male  contents  himself  with  more 
1  Bird,  rather  like  quail. 

43 


THE  NATURAL 

sober  clothing  and,  not  being  able  to  lay,  assumes  at 
least  the  further  maternal  cares:  sitting  on  the  eggs. 

In  general,  nature  is,  in  the  bird  world,  favourable  to 
the  male.  He  is  a  prince  whose  wife  appears  morgan- 
atic. Often  smaller,  as  the  female  canepetiere  (a  sort  of 
bustard),  while  the  female  garden  warbler  is  nearly  al- 
ways clothed  as  Cinderella.  The  birds  which  women 
have  massacred  in  millions  in  order  to  deck  themselves 
as  parrots  and  jays,  are  male  birds  for  the  most  part; 
their  sisters  bear  more  modest  clothing,  and  one  would 
say  that  this  humility,  become  favourable  to  their  species, 
had  been  developed  by  nature  in  provision  of  human 
stupidity  and  badheartedness.  The  gold-yellow  oriole 
with  black  wings  and  tail,  has  for  mate  a  brown  sparrow 
with  grey  and  greenish  touches.  The  silver  pheasant  (a 
false  pheasant)  has  a  black  tuft  standing  up  from  his 
silver-white  nape,  his  neck  and  back  are  of  the  same 
metal;  his  dark  belly  has  a  blue  shimmer,  his  beak 
is  blue,  his  cheeks  red,  and  his  feet,  red.  The  smaller 
female  covers  her  belly  sadly  in  a  whitish  chemise,  her 
back  is  russet.  In  the  true  pheasant  the  dimorphism  is 
still  more  marked.  The  large,  proud  male  (we  are  deal- 
ing with  the  common  pheasant)  who  has  no  objection 
to  being  admired,  is  deep  green  on  nape  and  neck,  cop- 
per-red with  violet  shimmer  on  back,  flanks,  belly  and 
breast;  his  tail  russet  with  black  bands,  a  reddish  brown 
tuft  spreads  from  his  head,  and  the  eye-circle  is  vivid 
red.  The  much  smaller  female  has  an  earthy  plumage 
speckled  with  black.  The  fair  Golden  Pheasant  is  really 
all  golden  over  green.  His  yellow  tail  and  wings  and 
his  saffron  red  belly  complete  this  marvellous  masculine 
44 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

splendour.  The  female  must  content  herself  with  burnt 
sienna  back-covering  which  comes  down  onto  her  ochre- 
coloured  belly. 

A  little  head  projecting  from  an  enormous  neck-circle 
of  white  out-puffing  feathers,  middle  sized  body,  and 
long  legs.  It  is  the  combatant  (ruff -bird).  One  must 
add  a  tapering  beak,  ornamented  at  the  base  by  a  sort 
of  red  grape.  One  can't  say  what  colour  the  male  is,  he 
is  of  all  colours.  One  leaves  him  white,  and  finds  him 
red;  he  was  black,  and  is  violet;  later  he  will  be  speckled 
or  banded  in  most  varied  hues.  His  ruff  is  an  ornament 
and  a  defence;  he  loses  both  it  and  his  red  grape  with  the 
passing  of  his  fighting  and  loving  season.  This  instabil- 
ity of  feathering  accords  curiously  with  the  instability  of 
his  character;  no  animal  is  more  irritable  or  cantanker- 
ous. One  can  not  keep  him  captive  save  solitary  and  in 
obscurity.  The  female,  somewhat  less  turbulent  never 
changes  her  vestment,  an  invariable  gray,  with  a  small 
amount  of  brown  on  the  back. 

Peacocks  and  turkey-cocks  alone  can  spread  wheel- 
wise  their  fan-tails,  as  also  the  cock  bustard;  they  alone 
are  provided  with  great  wattles.  The  menure  hen  lifts, 
as  the  cock,  a  lyre  of  feathers,  but  it  is  a  tarnished  and 
mediocre  imitation  of  her  master's,  which  glistens  in 
all  shades  rising  and  curving  with  such  paradoxical  grace. 

The  dimorphism  of  birds  of  paradise  is  even  more 
marked  than  in  the  preceding  cases.  Nape  citron-yellow, 
throat  green,  forehead  black,  back  in  burnt  chestnut, 
the  cock's  tail  has  two  long  plumes,  his  flanks  two  fine 
tapering  feathers  of  yellow-orange  marked  in  red,  which 
he  can  spread  branching  or  draw  in  at  will;  the  dim 
45 


THE  NATURAL 

female  is  without  ornament.  The  sifilet,  a  bird  related 
to  the  birds  of  paradise  has,  fixed  between  eye  and  ear  a 
pair  of  fine  plumes  twice  the  length  of  his  body,  which 
float  as  he  walks  like  white  blue-shimmering  streamers. 
It  is  a  lover's  paraphernalia,  which  the  female  in  conse- 
quence does  without,  while  the  male  loses  his  after  mat- 
ing. 

The  dissemblance  of  barnyard  cock  and  hen  are  well 
enough  known  to  give  everyone  a  clear  idea  of  dimor- 
phism in  birds  and  to  show  difference  of  characters 
parallel  with  difference  of  form. 

The  dimorphism  of  mammals  is  even  less  often  favour- 
able to  the  female  than  is  that  of  birds.  One  can  cite 
but  the  sole  example  of  the  American  tapir  where  the 
male  is  smaller  than  the  female.1  The  contrary  is  nearly 
always  the  case.  Sometimes  the  two  sexes  have  an 
identical  appearance:  cougars,  cats,  panthers,  servals.  If 
there  is  a  rule,  it  is  difficult  to  formulate,  for  side  by 
side  with  these  felines  without  sexual  dimorphism,  the 
sex  of  lions  and  tigers  clearly  determines  their  forms. 

Among  mammifers  there  are  bizarre  resemblances  and 
baroque  differences.  The  he  and  she  mole,  at  first 
sight,  appear  the  same  even  to  their  exterior  sexual  or- 
gans, the  female's  clitoris  is,  like  the  male's  penis,  per- 
forated to  let  the  ureter  pass  through  it.  But  here,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  the  morphologic  resemblance  by  no 
means  indicates  similarity  of  characters;  the  female  mole 
is  excessively  female.  There  is  baroque  difference  of 
sexes  in  the  capped  seal  of  Greenland  and  Terra  Nova. 
The  male  can  puff  out  his  head-skin  into  an  enormous 

1  Translator's  note.    O  sinistre  continent. 
46 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

helmet.  To  what  purpose?  Possibly  to  scare  naive 
enemies.  True  to  her  role  of  protege  the  female  can  not 
throw  this  bluff,  which  is  used  by  Chinese  warriors,  by 
certain  insects  like  the  mantis  and  by  the  cobra  among 
serpents. 

She-brown  bears  and  she-kangaroos  are  smaller  than 
males.  In  all  the  deer  tribes  save  reindeer  the  male 
alone  is  horned,  and  this  is  the  by  no  means  ridiculous 
origin  of  a  very  old  joke,  for  the  does  are  lascivious  and 
are  pleased  to  receive  the  attentions  of  a  number  of  males. 
The  difference  of  bull  and  cow  is  distinct  enough,  that 
of  stallion  and  mare  less  so,  diminishing  still  further  be- 
tween dog  and  bitch,  and  being  almost  null  among  cats. 
In  all  cases  where  the  dimorphism  is  slight,  and  is  the 
direct  consequence  of  the  possession  of  sexual  organs, 
castration  inclines  the  male  toward  the  female  type.1 
This  is  as  apparent  in  cattle  as  in  eunuchs  or  gelded 
horses.  One  may  see  in  this  yet  another  proof  of  the 
primitivity  of  the  female,  since  the  abstraction  of  testicles 
suffices  to  give  the  male  that  softness  of  form  and  char- 
acter which  typifies  females.  Masculinity  is  an  aug- 
mentation, an  aggravation  of  the  normal  type  represented 
by  femininity;  it  is  a  progress,  and  in  this  sense  it  is  a 
development.  But  this  reasoning,  good  for  mammals, 
would  be  detestable  among  insects,  where  the  accentua- 
tion of  type  is  nearly  always  furnished  by  the  female. 
There  are  no  general  laws  in  nature,  unless  they  be 
those  which  regulate  all  matter.  With  the  birth  of  life, 

1  Castration  of  females  seems,  at  least,  among  humans,  to  bring 
them  nearer  the  male  type.  Effects  of  castration  vary,  neces- 
sarily, according  to  the  age  of  the  subject. 

47 


THE  NATURAL 

the  unique  tendency  diverges  at  once  upon  multiple 
lines.  Perhaps  we  must  throw  this  point  of  divergence 
still  further  back,  for  a  metal  like  radium  seems  to  differ 
from  other  metals  as  much  as  an  hymenopter  from  a 
gasteropod. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER   VI 

SEXUAL  DIMORPHISM 

III.  Vertebrates  (continued). — Man  and  woman. — 
Characteristics  and  limits  of  human  dimorphism. — 
Effects  of  civilization. — Psychologic  dimorphism. — The 
insect  world  and  the  human. — Modern  dimorphism, 
basis  of  the  pair. — Solidarity  of  the  human  pair. — 
Dimorphism  and  polygamy. — The  pair  favours  the 
female. — Sexual  (Esthetics. — Causes  of  the  superiority 
of  feminine  beauty. 

III.  VERTEBRATES  (continued) — Man  and  woman. — 
Among  primates  sexual  dimorphism  is  but  little  accent- 
uated, especially  when  the  male  and  female  live  the  same 
life  in  the  open  air  and  share  the  same  labours.  The  male 
gorilla,  very  strong  and  very  pig-headed,  flees  from  no 
enemy;  the  female  on  the  contrary  is  almost  timid:  when 
surprised  in  company  with  the  male,  she  cries  out,  gives 
the  alarm  and  escapes.  But  attacked  when  alone  with 
her  offspring,  she  resists.  One  can  easily  distinguish 
the  male  and  female  orang-outang,  the  male  is  larger 
with  longer  more  bristling  hair,  he  alone  has  a  Horace 
Greeley  beard;  in  the  female  the  patches  of  bald  skin  are 
much  less  callous.  But  the  great  difference  between  the 
49 


THE  NATURAL 

sexes  in  gorilla  and  orang-outang  is  in  the  males  having 
vocal  sacks  descending  over  the  chest  to  the  arm-pits. 

Thanks  to  these  air-reservoirs,  these  bag-pipe  bags, 
inflatable  at  will,  the  male  can  howl  for  a  very  long 
time  and  with  great  violence;  the  females'  sacks  are  very 
small.  Other  monkeys,  notably  howling  apes,  are  pro- 
vided with  these  air-chambers,  as  are  also  certain  other 
mammifers  well  known  for  the  extravagance  of  their 
cries:  polecats  and  pigs.  Birds  and  batrachians  have 
analogous  organs. 

Dimorphism  of  men  and  women  varies  according  to 
race  or  rather  according  to  species.  Very  feeble  in  most 
blacks  and  reds  it  is  accentuated  among  Semites,  Aryans, 
and  Finns.  But  in  man  as  in  all  animals  of  separate 
sexes  one  must  differentiate  between  the  primary  dimor- 
phism, which  is  necessary  and  produced  by  the  specializa- 
tion of  sexual  organs,  and  the  secondary  dimorphism  with 
which  the  relation  of  sex  is  less  evident  or  wholly  un- 
certain. Limited  to  the  non-sexual  elements,  human 
dimorphism  is  very  feeble.  Almost  null  in  infancy,  it 
develops  with  approaching  puberty,  is  maintained  dur- 
ing the  genital  period,  and  diminishes,  sometimes  almost 
to  vanishing  point,  in  old  age.  It  varies  individually, 
even  during  the  years  of  greatest  reproductivity,  in  males 
feebly  sexed  and  in  women  heavily  sexed:  that  is  to  say 
there  are  men  and  women  whose  type  closely  approaches 
the  type-ideal  formed  by  the  fusion  of  sexes;  neither  one 
nor  the  other  escapes  the  radical  dimorphism  imposed 
by  the  difference  of  sexual  organs. 

Leaving  aside  exceptions,  one  observes  a  mediocre 
and  constant  dimorphism  between  men  and  women, 
SO 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

which  may  be  expressed  as  follows,  taking  the  male  for 
type:  the  female  is  smaller  and  has  less  muscular  force, 
she  has  longer  head  hair,  but  in  contrast  the  hair- 
system  is  very  little  developed  over  the  rest  of  her  body, 
excepting  in  the  armpits  and  pubis;  aside  from  the 
teats,  belly  and  hips,  whose  form  is  sexual,  she  is  normally 
fatter  than  the  male,  and  in  direct  consequence  of  this, 
her  skin  is  finer;  her  skull-capacity  is  inferior  by  about 
15%  (man=ioo;  woman=8s)  and  her  intelligence, 
less  spontaneous,  inclines  in  general  to  activities  entirely 
practical.  There  is  hardly  any  difference  in  the  male  and 
female  skulls  of  every  inferior  human  species,  the  con- 
trary is  true  of  civilized  races.  Civilization  has  certainly 
accentuated  the  initial  dimorphism  of  man  and  woman — 
at  least  unless  one  of  the  very  conditions  of  civilizations 
be  not  precisely  a  notable  difference,  morphologic  and 
psychologic,  between  the  two  sexes.  In  that  case  civiliza- 
tion has  but  accentuated  a  native  dimorphism.  This 
is  more  probable,  for  one  does  not  see  how  civilization 
could  have  caused  the  dimorphism,  not  at  least  unless  it 
had  already  existed  as  a  very  strong  tendency.  Identical 
work,  the  same  utilization  of  instinctive  activities  have 
managed  greatly  to  reduce  dimorphism  of  forms,  for 
example,  in  dogs  and  horses,  but  this  has  had  no  in- 
fluence on  the  psychologic  dimorphism.  Cultivation  of 
instinct  has  never  been  able  to  efface,  in  the  most  spe- 
cialized breeds  of  dogs,  the  peculiar  tonality  which  instinct 
receives  from  sex.  It  is  improbable  that  intellectual 
culture  could  fashion  women  in  such  a  way  as  to  rid 
them  of  the  characteristic  colour  which  sex  imparts  to 
their  intelligence. 

Si 


THE  NATURAL 

One  uses  the  words  instinct  and  intelligence  to  flatter 
prejudiced  people.  Instinct  is  merely  a  mode  of  intel- 
ligence. 

Dimorphism  is  a  constant  fact  in  the  animal  series. 
Favourable  to  the  male,  favourable  to  the  female,  indiffer- 
ent, it  starts  always  from  sexual  necessity.  There  is  a 
job  to  be  done:  nature  divides  it  equally,  or  not,  be- 
tween male  and  female.  She  knows  neither  justice  nor 
equality,  and  lays  heavy  burdens  upon  some,  even  to 
mutilation  and  premature  death,  while  she  gives  to 
others  liberty,  leisures,  and  long  hours  of  pleasant  life. 
It  is  necessary  that  the  couple  reproduce  a  certain  number 
of  beings,  equals  of  the  unities  of  which  itself  is  formed: 
all  means  are  good  which  attain  this  end,  and  which 
attain  it  most  speedily  and  most  surely.  Nature  who 
is  pitiless,  is  also  in  a  hurry.  Her  imagination,  always 
active,  invents,  ceaselessly,  new  forms  which  she  casts 
into  life,  in  measure  as  the  earlier  born  finish  their  cycle. 
In  superior  mammals,  and  particularly  in  human  species, 
division  of  labour  is  the  means  used  by  nature  to  insure 
the  perpetuity  of  types.  The  female  insect  (leaving 
aside  for  the  moment  social  hymenoptera)  is  provided 
at  once  with  the  organs  of  her  sex  and  with  tools  of  her 
trade,  with  arms  for  guarding  the  race;  the  female  human 
has  ceded  to  man  the  tools  and  weapons,  here  merged  in 
the  one  instrument,  muscle.  Or  rather,  keeping  her 
rights  to  the  instrument,  she  gives  up  the  use  of  it. 
She  is  neither  warrior,  huntress,  nor  mason,  nor  butcher; 
she  is  the  female,  and  the  male  is  the  rest.  The  division 
of  labour  supposes  community.  In  order  that  the  female 
may  cede  the  cares  for  subsistence  and  defence  to  the 
52 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

male,  the  couple  must  be  established  and  permanent. 
The  male  osmie  (sort  of  solitary  bee)  sees  the  light  be- 
fore his  female;  he  could  prepare  the  nest,  or  at  least 
choose  its  situation,  guide  the  female  to  it,  work  or 
watch;  but  he  belongs  to  a  series  of  animals  in  which 
the  males  are  merely  male  organs,  and  all  his  role  is  con- 
tained in  the  gestures  of  mating.  The  couple  is  not 
yet  formed.  When  it  is  formed,  as  in  other  kinds  of 
insects,  scarabs,  copris,  sisyphs,  geotrupes,  the  work  is 
equally  shared  between  the  two  sexes.  Here  the  parallel 
ends,  for  the  social  evolution  of  the  insect  has  led  to 
functional  differentiations  extremely  complicated,  and 
if  not  unknown,  at  least  abnormal,  to  humanity.  Bee 
society  has  the  female  for  base,  human  society  has  the 
couple.  They  are  organisms  so  different  that  no  com- 
parison of  them  is  possible,  or  even  useful.  Only  in 
ignorance  of  them,  can  one  envy  bees;  a  community 
without  sexual  relations  is  really  without  attraction  for 
a  member  of  the  human  community.  The  hive  is  not 
a  society  but  a  hatchery. 

The  couple  is  only  possible  with  a  dimorphism,  real 
but  moderate.  There  must  be  a  difference,  especially  of 
strength,  in  order  for  there  to  be  a  true  union,  that  is 
to  say  subordination.  A  couple  formed  of  equal  ele- 
ments, like  a  society  of  equal  elements,  would  be  in  a 
state  of  permanent  anarchy;  two  creatures  suffice  for 
anarchy,  as  for  war.  A  couple  formed  of  elements  too 
unequal,  would,  by  the  crushing  of  the  weaker,  find  itself 
reduced  to  tyrannized  unity.  Man  and  woman,  as  is  the 
case  with  other  primates  and  the  carnivora  (for  most 
herbivora  are  polygamous)  represent  two  sexes  made  to 
S3 


THE  NATURAL 

live  united  and  to  share  jointly  in  the  cares  for  their 
offspring.  The  state  of  couple,  demanding  a  certain 
dimorphism,  assures  by  it,  its  perpetuity.  When  the 
couple  is  dissolved,  be  it  by  polygamy  or  by  promiscuity, 
as  has  happened  among  Mohammedans,  and  among  Chris- 
tians (a  religion,  long  powerful,  functions  both  as  race 
and  as  milieu)  the  dimorphism  is  accentuated,  each  of 
the  elements  escapes,  in  some  measure,  the  strict  influence 
of  the  other  sex.  Likewise  if,  in  consequence  of  identical 
education,  the  psychologic  dimorphism  is  attenuated, 
even  slightly — it  never  is  attenuated  more  than  slightly — • 
or  if  physical  games  reduce  a  little  the  physical  differ- 
ences, the  couple  is  less  easily  formed  and  grows  less 
stable:  hence  adultery,  divorces,  excess  of  prostitution. 
In  all  monogamous  society,  prostitution  is  the  strict 
consequence:  it  diminishes  more  or  less  in  polygamous 
societies  where  the  free  women  are  rarer,  it  would  only 
disappear  completely  in  promiscuity,  that  is  to  say  in 
universal  prostitution. 

Polygamy,  apart  from  its  indirect  influence,  has,  by 
the  internment  of  women,  a  direct  one  on  the  dimorph- 
ism. Set  apart  from  the  active  life  of  the  outer 
world,  and  even  from  the  air  and  light,  the  female  of 
the  male  polygamous  human  becomes  whiter,  whatever 
may  have  been  her  initial  colour,  fatter,  heavier,  and  also 
more  stupid  and  more  addicted  to  all  sorts  of  onanism. 
Among  Indian  Mussulmen  the  man  and  woman  appear 
to  belong  to  different  species,  the  man  being  so  tanned, 
and  the  woman  so  colourless.  Shut-in  prostitutes  of  the 
Occident  also  lose  colour,  and  one  would  with  difficulty 
recognize  two  sisters  in  the  soft,  bleached  whore  and  the 
54 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

sun-reddened,  hardy  cow-girl.  Woman's  liberty  also 
accentuates  the  dimorphism  but  by  another  process. 
Freed  from  the  bridle  of  necessity,  from  the  need  of 
pleasing,  woman  escaped  from  the  couple,  exaggerates 
her  feminism,  she  becomes  again  the  female  in  excess, 
since  it  is  in  being  more  and  more  female  that  she 
has  most  chances  of  seducing  the  male,  who  is  insensible 
to  all  other  merit.  And,  inversely,  a  woman  having  man's 
education  is,  given  equal  beauty,  less  than  any  other  a 
seductress. 

Thus,  while  the  disintegration  of  the  couple  augments 
the  feminine  dimorphism,  the  diminution  of  the  natural 
dimorphism  renders  the  transformation  of  the  couple 
more  uneasy  and  more  precarious.  The  human  couple 
is  an  harmony  difficult  to  realize,  very  easy  to  destroy, 
but  in  measure  as  one  destroys  it  one  frees  the  elements 
which  will,  necessarily,  re-create  it.  (We  will  return  later 
to  polygamy,  human  and  animal ;  but  must  here  examine 
its  relation  to  dimorphism.  All  the  questions  treated  in 
this  book  are,  moreover,  so  interlocked,  that  it  will  be 
difficult  to  prevent  one  or  other  of  them  from  cropping 
up  apropos  no  matter  what  other.  If  the  method  is  less 
clear  it  is  perhaps  more  loyal.  Far  from  wishing  to 
impart  human  logic  to  nature,  one  attempts  here  to 
introduce  a  little  natural  logic  into  the  old  classic  logic.) 

The  sole  aim  of  the  couple  is  to  free  the  female  from 
all  care  that  is  not  purely  sexual,  to  permit  her  the  most 
perfect  accomplishment  of  her  most  important  function. 
The  couple  favours  the  female,  but  it  favours  also  the 
race.  It  is  fully  beneficial  when  the  woman  has  acquired 
the  right  of  maternal  laziness.  There  is  another  reason 
55 


THE  NATURAL 

for  believing  in  the  legitimacy  of  such  a  sharing  of 
useful  work  between  the  two  members  of  the  couple, 
it  is  that  masculine  work  diminishes  its  femininity,  while 
feminine  work  feminizes  the  males.  In  order  that  the 
necessary  and  moderate  dimorphism  persist  it  would  be 
necessary  if  the  woman  is  to  take  up  male  exercises  that 
the  male  should  assume  all  the  accessory  labours  of 
maternity.  This  would  not  be  contrary  to  supple  nat- 
ural logic;  there  are  examples  of  it  among  batrachians 
and  among  birds.  But  one  does  not  see  clearly  either 
the  utility  or  the  possibility  of  such  a  reversal  of  roles 
in  the  human  species.  The  duty  of  a  being  is  to  perse- 
vere in  its  being  and  even  to  augment  the  character- 
istics which  specialize  it.  The  duty  of  woman  is  to 
keep  and  to  accentuate  her  aesthetic  and  her  psychologic 
dimorphism.  The  aesthetic  viewpoint  obliges  one  for  the 
thousandth  time  to  put,  but,  happily,  not  to  resolve  the 
agreeable  question  of  woman's  beauty.  One  may  judge 
when  it  is  a  matter  of  shape,  of  muscular  energy,  of 
respiratory  amplitude:  these  can  be  measured  and  set 
down  in  figures.  When  it  comes  to  beauty,  it  is  a 
matter  of  feeling,  that  is  to  say  of  what  is  at  once  deep- 
est and  most  personal  in  each  one  of  us,  and  which  is 
most  variable  between  one  man  and  another.  However, 
the  sexual  element  which  enters  into  the  idea  of  bfeauty, 
being  here  at  its  very  root,  since  it  is  the  question  of 
woman,  the  opinion  of  men  is  nearly  unanimous:  in  the 
human  couple,  it  is  woman  who  represents  beauty. 
All  contrary  opinion  will  be  for  ever  considered  as  a 
paradox  or  as  the  most  boring  of  sexual  aberrations.  A 
feeling  does  not  adduce  its  reasons,  it  has  none.  It 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

has  to  have  them  lent  to  it.  yThe  superiority  of  feminine 
beauty  is  real,  it  has  a  sole"  cause,  the  unity  of  line. 
What  makes  woman  the  more  beautiful  is  the  invisibility 
of  her  genital  organs.  The  male  organ,  which  is  some- 
times an  advantage,  is  always  a  load,  and  always  a 
blemish;  it  is  made  for  the  race,  not  for  the  individual. 
In  the  male  human,  and  precisely  because  of  its  erect 
attitude,  the  sex  is  the  sensitive  point  par  excellence, 
and  the  visible  point,  it  is  the  point  of  attack  in  hand 
to  hand  struggle,  point  of  aim  for  the  jet,  obstacle  for 
the  eye,  be  it  as  a  roughness  of  surface,  be  it  as  a  break 
in  the  middle  of  the  line.  The  harmony  of  the  female 
body  is  then  geometrically,  much  more  perfect,  espe- 
cially if  one  consider  the  male  and  the  female  at  the 
very  hour  of  desire,  at  the  moment,  that  is,  when  they 
present  the  most  intense  and  most  natural  expression 
of  life.  In  the  woman,  all  movements  are  interior,  or 
visible  only  in  the  undulation  of  her  curves,  conserving 
thus  her  full  aesthetic  value,  while  the  man,  seeming 
at  once  to  recede  toward  the  primitive  states  of  animality, 
appears  reduced,  putting  off  all  beauty,  to  the  bare 
and  simple  condition  of  genital  organ.  Man,  it  is  true, 
has  his  aesthetic  compensation  during  pregnancy  and 
its  deformations. 

One  must  admit  also  that  the  human  form  has  grave 
defects  of  proportion,  and  that  they  are  more  accentuated 
in  the  female  than  in  the  male.  In  general  the  trunk 
is  too  long,  and  the  legs,  consequently,  too  short.  One 
says  that  there  are  two  aesthetic  types  in  Aryan  races: 
one  with  long  limbs  and  one  with  short  limbs.  Both 
types  are  indeed,  easy  enough  to  distinguish,  but  they 
57 


THE  NATURAL 

rarely  present  their  characteristics  with  sufficient  dis- 
tinction, moreover  the  first  is  rather  rare:  it  is  the  one 
which  sculptors  have  vulgarized  by  amelioration.  Com- 
pare a  series  of  photographs  of  art  with  a  series  of 
photos  from  the  nude,  and  you  have  proof  enough  that 
the  beauty  of  the  human  body  is  an  ideologic  creation. 
Take  away  the  egoistic  sentiment  of  the  race,  and  the 
sexual  delirium,  and  man  would  appear  very  inferior 
in  harmonic  plentitude  to  most  of  the  mammifers;  the 
monkey,  his  brother,  is,  frankly,  maesthetic. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER   VII 

SEXUAL  DIMORPHISM  AND  FEMINISM 

Inferiority  and  superiority  of  the  female  as  shown  in 
animal  species. — Influence  of  feeding  on  the  production 
of  sexes. — The  female  would  have  sufficed. — Feminism 
absolute,  and  moderate. — Pipe-dreams:  elimination  of 
the  male  and  human  parthenogenesis. 

ONLY  after  serious  study  of  sexual  dimorphism  in 
the  animal  series  may  one  venture  a  few  reflections  on 
feminism.  One  has  noticed,  in  certain  species,  the  female 
more  beautiful,  stronger,  more  active,  more  intelligent; 
and  one  has  noticed  the  opposite.  One  has  seen  the 
male  larger,  or  smaller;  one  has  seen  and  will  see  him 
parasite,  or  provider,  permanent  master  of  the  couple 
or  the  group,  fugitive  lover,  a  slave  sacrificed  by  the 
female  after  the  completion  of  her  pleasure.  All  attitudes, 
and  the  same  ones,  are  attributed  by  nature  to  either 
of  the  sexes;  there  is  not,  apart  from  the  specific  func- 
tions, a  male  or  a  female  role.  Both  or  either  accord- 
ing to  the  decalogue  of  their  specie  put  on  the  same 
costume,  don  the  same  mask,  wield  the  same  boar-spear, 
tool  or  sabre  without  one's  being  able  to  discover,  at 
least  not  without  going  back  to  the  beginning  of  things 
and  digesting  the  archives  of  life,  which  of  them  is  dis- 
guised and  which  acts  "according  to  nature." 
59 


THE  NATURAL 

The  abundance  of  food,  especially  nitrogenized 
(?  azotized)  will  produce  a  greater  number  of  females. 
With  certain  animals  at  transformation  one  may  act 
directly  on  individuals:  tadpoles  gorged  on  mixed  food, 
vegetables,  larvae,  chopped  meat,  have  given  an  excess  of 
females  approaching  totality  (95  females  to  5  males). 
On  the  other  hand  over-feeding  tends  to  abolish  stamens 
in  plants,  the  stamens  turn  into  petals,  suralimentation 
even  moults  the  petals  into  leaves  and  the  buds  into 
shoots.  Richness  of  means,  well-being,  intensive  feeding 
abolish  sex,  but  the  last  to  be  affected  is  the  female, 
which  in  sum,  perseveres  obscurely  in  the  unsexed  plant, 
forced  back  to  its  primitive  means  of  reproduction,  or 
to  reproduction  by  slip  cutting.  If  excessive  alimenta- 
tion tends  to  suppress  the  male,  it  would  then  appear 
that  the  separation  into  two  sexes  is  a  means  of  diminish- 
ing the  costs  of  the  total  being.  The  mono.ic  type  is 
a  step  toward  this  simplification  of  labour;  the  female 
at  a  given  moment  eliminates  her  male  organ,  refuses 
to  feed  it,  frees  herself  from  the  burden  which  has  only 
a  momentary  utility.  And,  following  this,  provided  in 
herself  with  an  overabundance  of  all  that  maintains  life, 
she  divests  herself  of  the  specialized  sexual  apparatus, 
unsexes  herself,  that  is  to  say,  the  identity  of  contraries 
being  here  evident,  she  is  sexed  throughout  all  her  parts: 
tola  femina  sexus. 

The  male  is  an  accident:  the  female  would  have 
sufficed.  Brilliant  as  are,  in  certain  animal  species,  the 
destinies  of  the  male,  the  female  is  primordial.  In  civil- 
ized humanity  she  is  born  in  proportion  greater  as  the 
civilization  approaches  a  greater  plenitude;  and  this 
60 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

very  plenitude  diminishes,  proportionately,  the  general 
fecundity:  whether  we  treat  of  man  or  of  apple-trees,  the 
male  element  in-  or  de-creases  according  to  famine  or 
abundance  of  nourishment.  But  the  human  race  is  not 
sufficiently  plastic  for  the  variation  of  births  to  be  ever 
very  great  between  the  two  sexes;  and  no  warm-blooded 
animal  is  sufficiently  plastic  for  this  cause,  so  active 
among  vegetables,  ever  to  lead  to  the  dissolution  of  the 
male.  There  are  no  natural  laws,  there  are  tendencies, 
there  are  limits:  the  fields  of  oscillation  are  determined 
by  the  pasts  of  species,  trenches  curving  into  cloisters 
which  close,  in  nearly  all  directions,  the  alleys  of  the 
future. 

It  is  a  fact,  from  henceforth  hereditary,  that  the 
male  of  the  human  species  has  centralized  in  himself 
most  of  the  activities  independent  of  the  sexual  motor. 
He  alone  is  capable  of  disinterested  works,  that  is  to  say 
of  aims  unconnected  with  the  physical  conservation  of  the 
race,  but  without  which  civilization  would  be  impossible, 
or  at  least  very  different  from  what  it  is  and  from  the 
idea  which  we  have  of  its  future.  Doubtless  in  humanity, 
as  in  the  rest  of  nature,  the  female  represents  the  im- 
portant sex.  In  utter  need,  as  with  the  mason  bee,  she 
could  serve  for  the  absolutely  necessary  work,  to  build 
the  shelter,  to  gather  the  food,  and  the  male  might, 
without  essential  damage  be  reduced  to  the  role  of  mere 
fecundating  apparatus.  The  number  of  males  could, 
and  even  should  in  such  case,  diminish  with  due  rapid- 
ity, but  then  human  society  would  in-  or  de-dine  toward 
the  type  represented  by  that  of  social  bees:  continual 
labour  being  incompatible  with  the  periods  of  maternity, 
61 


THE  NATURAL 

the  feminine  sex  would  atrophy,  a  single  female  would 
be  elevated  to  the  dignity  of  queen  and  mother,  the  rest 
of  the  population  would  work  stupidly  for  an  ideal  ex- 
terior to  its  own  sensibility.  Even  more  radical  trans- 
formations would  not  be  anti-natural.  Virgin-birth 
might  establish  itself:  certain  males  could  be  bora  in 
each  century,  as  happens  in  the  intellectual  order,  and 
they  could  fecundate  the  generation  of  loins,  as  genius 
fecundates  the  generation  of  minds.  But  humanity,  by 
the  richness  of  its  intelligence,  is  less  than  other  animal 
species  submitted  to  causal  necessity;  by  constant 
squirming  in  its  nets,  it  has  managed  to  displace  a  cord 
here  and  there,  and  makes  now  and  again  the  un- 
expected movement.  The  coming  of  males  once  hi  a 
century  would  be  unnecessary  if  some  mechanical  device 
were  found  for  exciting  the  life  of  woman's  eggs,  as 
one  excites  those  of  the  sea-anemone.  If  a  few  males 
were  born  from  time  to  time,  by  an  atavistic  quirk  of 
nature,  they  could  be  exhibited  as  curiosities,  as  we  now 
exhibit  hermaphrodites. 

The  feminist  ideal  leads  us  to  these  pipe-dreams.  But 
if  it  comes  to  destroying  the  couple  and  not  to  re-forming 
it,  if  it  comes  to  establishing  a  vast  social  promiscuity, 
if  feminism  resolves  itself  into  the  formula:  free- woman 
in  free-love,  it  is  even  more  chimerical  than  all  the 
chimaera  which  have  at  least  their  analogy  in  the  divers- 
ity of  animal  habits.  Human  parthenogenesis  is  less  ab- 
surd: it  offers  an  order,  and  promiscuity  is  a  disorder. 
But  social  promiscuity  is  impossible  by  the  further  reason 
that  woman,  the  more  feeble,  would  be  crushed  by  it. 
She  struggles  against  man  only,  thanks  to  the  privileges 
62 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

which  man  concedes  her,  when  troubled  by  sexual  in- 
ebriety, intoxicated  and  drowsy  with  the  fumes  of  desire. 
The  factitious  equality  which  she  claims  would  re-estab- 
lish her  ancient  slavery,  on  the  day  when  most  or  all 
women  wish  to  enjoy  it:  that  is  still  another  possible 
solution  of  the  feminist  crisis.  However  one  looks  at 
it,  one  sees  the  human  couple  re-establish  itself  ineluct- 
ably. 

It  is  very  difficult,  from  the  standpoint  of  natural 
logic,  to  sympathize  with  moderate  feminism,  one  could 
more  easily  accept  feminism  in  excess.  For  if  there  are 
in  nature  numerous  examples  of  feminism,  there  are  very 
few  of  an  equality  of  the  sexes. 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LOVE-ORGANS 

Sexual  dimorphism  and  parallelism. — Sexual  organs  oj 
man  and  oj  woman. — Constancy  oj  sexual  parallelism 
in  the  animal  series. — External  sexual  organs  oj  placen- 
tary  mammijera. — Form  and  position  oj  the  penis. — 
The  penial  bone. — The  clitoris. — The  vagina. — The 
teats. — Forked  prong  oj  marsupials. — Sexual  organs  o] 
reptiles. — Fish  and  birds  with  a  penial  organ — Genital 
organs  oj  arthropodes. — Attempt  to  classify  animals 
according  to  the  disposition,  presence,  absence  oj  ex- 
terior organs  for  reproduction. 

SEXUAL  dimorphism,  physic  as  well  as  psychic,  has 
evidently  one  sole  cause,  sex;  nevertheless  the  organs 
which  differ  least  from  male  and  female  among  species 
which  differ  most,  are  precisely  the  sexual  organs.  That 
is,  they  are  rigorously  made  the  one  for  the  other,  and 
the  accord  in  this  case  must  be  not  only  harmonic,  but 
mechanical  and  mathematical.  They  are  cog-wheels  which 
must  bite  one  on  the  other  with  exactitude,  be  it,  as  in 
birds,  that  there  is  but  an  exact  superposition  of  two 
orifices,  be  it,  as  in  mammals  that  the  key  must  enter 
the  keyhole.  There  is  a  dimorphism,  but  it  is  that  of  the 
mould  to  the  cast,  of  the  scabbard  to  the  blade;  for  the 
parts  where  the  contact  is  less  strict,  the  parallelism  id 
64 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

nevertheless  quite  sensible  and  quite  apparent.  This 
similitude  in  difference  has  struck  philosophers  as  well  as 
anatomists  in  all  ages  from  the  logical  insinuations  of 
Aristotle  to  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire's  theory  of  analogies. 
Galien  had  already  noted  certain  analogies,  more  or  less 
exact:  greater  labia,  and  foreskin,  ovaries  and  testicles, 
scrotum  and  ma  trice.  He  says,  textually:  "All  parts  of 
man  are  found  in  woman;  there  is  but  one  point  of 
difference,  woman's  parts  are  interior,  man's  exterior, 
parting  from  the  perineal  region.  Imagine  those  which 
first  present  themselves  to  mind,  no  matter  which,  unfold 
woman's  or  fold  man's  inward  and  you  will  find  either  a 
replica  of  the  other.  Suppose  first  man's  organs  pushed 
into  him  and  extending  interiorly  between  the  rectum 
and  the  vessie;  in  this  supposition  the  scrotum  would 
occupy  the  place  of  the  matrice,  with  the  testicles 
placed  at  each  side  of  the  exterior  orifice.  The  prong 
of  the  male  would  become  the  throat  of  the  cavity  thus 
produced,  and  the  skin  of  the  prong's  extremity,  called 
the  foreskin  would  form  the  vagina.  Suppose,  inversely, 
that  the  matrice  should  turn  inside  out  and  fall  outside, 
would  not  its  testicles  (ovaries)  of  necessity,  find  them- 
selves inside  its  cavity  and  would  not  it  envelop  them 
as  a  scrotum?  Would  not  the  throat,  hidden  up  to  the 
perineum,  become  the  male  member,  and  the  vagina, 
which  is  but  a  cutaneous  appendix  of  the  throat,  the 
foreskin?"  This  is  the  passage  which  Diderot  has  trans- 
posed and  put  au  courant  with  science  in  his  Reve 
d'Alembert.  This  page  of  literary  anatomy  retains  its 
expressive  value:  "Woman  has  all  man's  parts,  the 
sole  difference  is  like  that  between  a  purse  hanging  out- 
65 


THE  NATURAL 

side  and  a  purse  stuffed  inside;  a  female  foetus  resembles 
a  male  foetus,  so  as  to  deceive  anyone;  the  part  which 
occasions  the  error,  sinks  in  the  female  foetus  in  measure 
as  the  purse  extends  inward;  it  is  never  obliterated  to 
the  point  of  losing  its  primitive  form;  it  also  is  the  mover 
of  pleasure,  it  has  its  gland,  its  foreskin,  and  one  notes 
at  its  extremity  a  point  which  appears  to  have  been  the 
orifice  of  a  urinary  canal  which  has  closed;  there  is  in 
man  from  the  anus  to  the  scrotum,  the  interval  called 
the  perinaeum,  and  from  the  scrotum  to  the  end  of  the 
prong,  a  seam  which  looks  like  the  resewing  of  a  basted 
vulva;  women  with  excessive  clitoris,  have  beards,  eunuchs 
have  not,  their  thighs  increase,  their  hips  widen,  their 
knees  round  out,  and  in  losing  the  characteristic  organ- 
ization of  one  sex  they  seem  to  return  to  the  character- 
istic conformity  of  the  other.  ..."  In  terms  less 
literary,  one  considers  as  homologous,  in  man  and 
woman,  the  ovary  and  the  testicle,  lesser  labia,  clitoridian 
cap  and  sheath,  the  hanging  foreskin;  the  greater  labia 
and  the  envelope  of  the  scrotum;  clitoris  and  penis;  the 
vagina  and  the  prostatic  utricle.  One  will  find  the  de- 
tails of  these  analogies  in  special  works,  they  can  not 
be  given  here  with  scientific  precision.  The  sole  point 
to  hold  on  to  is  that  the  two  sexes  not  only  in  manr 
and  not  only  in  mammifers,  but  in  nearly  all  the  animal 
and  vegetable  series,  are  but  a  repetition  of  the  same 
creature  with  specialization  of  function.  This  special- 
ization may  extend  to  functions  other  than  sexual,  to 
work  (bees,  ants)  to  war  (termites).  The  soldier  termite 
is  extraordinary;  he  is  not  more  so  than  the  male. 
The  sexual  parallelism  is  constant  among  nearly  all 
66 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

vertebrates  and  arthropodes;  it  extends  to  identity  among 
hermaphrodite  mollusks  if  one  then  compare  not  two 
sexes  but  two  individuals.  It  extends,  for  each  sex  con- 
sidered separately,  along  the  whole  zoological  chain. 
Parting  from  link  animals  which  separate  into  two  parts, 
one  sees  the  sexual  organs  design  themselves  in  the  form 
wherein  they  arrive  in  higher  animals  of  great  complex- 
ity, such  that,  in  acquiring  differences  of  form  and 
position  they  retain  a  remarkable  stability  of  structure; 
one  would  say  almost  of  identity  in  marsupials,  reptiles, 
fish,  birds.  For  clarity  one  must  proceed  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown;  man  is  the  figure  to  whom  one 
may  compare  necessarily  the  observations  on  other 
animals. 

There  is  no  lack  of  point  in  knowing  the  normal  love- 
mechanism,  since  moralists  pretend  to  regulate  its  move- 
ments. Ignorance  is  tyrannic;  the  inventors  of  natural 
ethics  knew  very  little  of  nature:  this  permitted  them  to 
be  severe;  for  no  definite  piece  of  knowledge  interfered 
with  the  certitude  of  their  gestures.  One  becomes  more 
discreet  when  one  contemplates  the  prodigious  picture  of 
the  erotic  habits  of  the  animal  world,  and  even  entirely 
incompetent  to  decide  flatly,  yes  or  no,  whether  a  fact 
is  natural  or  unnatural. 

Man  is  a  placentary  mammifer:  by  this  title  his 
genital  organs  and  their  mode  of  employ  are  common  to 
him  and  to  all  hairy  animals  having  teats  and  an  um- 
bilicus. He  is  not  normally  covered  all  over  with  hair, 
but  there  is  hardly  a  spot  on  his  body  where  hairs  may 
not  sprout,  and  both  sexes  are  hairy  often  with  extreme 
abundance  in  pubis  and  arm-pits.  The  male  and  active 
67 


THE  NATURAL 

organ  of  mammifers  is  the  penis,  usually  completed 
exteriority  by  the  testicles.  The  penis  is,  at  once,  the 
excreting  conductor  of  urine  and  sperm;  an  analogous 
relation  exists  in  the  female,  and  it  is  with  exactitude 
that  these  mingled  organs  have  been  called  genito-urinary 
or  more  recently,  uro-genital;  it  is  the  same  in  all  the 
animal  series,  the  urethra  opens  exteriority  or  it  ends, 
as  in  birds,  in  a  cloaca,  vestibule,  for  all  the  excretions. 
The  penis  of  two-handed  (bimanous)  creatures  de- 
scends freely,  it  hangs  before  the  pubis  in  quadrumanes, 
and  in  chiroptera  (bats).  The  bat  is  strangely  like 
man,  and  like  primates  in  general:  five  fingers  to  the 
hand,  one  a  thumb,  five  fingers  on  the  foot,  pectoral 
teats,  mensual  flux,  free  penis;  it  is  a  little  caricature 
of  man,  abrupt  and  frightened  in  its  evening  flight  about 
houses.  Among  flesh-eaters,  ruminants,  pachyderms, 
solipedes  and  several  other  families  of  mammals,  the 
penis  is  sheathed  in  a  scabbard  which  stretches  along  the 
belly;  thus  preserved  against  accidents  and  insect  stings, 
while  its  sensibility  is  maintained  intact.  Voyagers,  ac- 
cording to  Buffon,  have  seen  Patagonians  trying  to  get 
like  results  by  tying  the  -foreskin  above  the  gland,  like 
a  bag  with  a  cord.  Thus  man's  hand  permits  him  to 
improve  or  mutilate  his  body.  Mutilation  and  sexual 
deformations,  circumcision  among  Semites  and  savages, 
excision  of  Russian  illuminati,  transversal  perforation  of 
the  gland,  surgical  flattening  of  the  prong,  are  very 
frequent.  The  hand  of  the  chiroptera  is  shackled,  that 
of  quadrumanes  has  only  one  sexual  role,  masturbation. 
It  may  also  serve  as  a  shield  against  external  danger; 
many  quadrumanes,  better  protected,  make  the  same  use 
68 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

of  their  tail  when  they  curl  it  between  their  legs,  this  is 
sometimes  a  psychological  gesture,  female  modesty  or 
refusal,  sometimes  a  gesture  of  preservation.  The  move- 
ments of  Venus  modest,  of  man  coming  naked  from  his 
bath,  have  no  other  origin.  Monkeys  when  they  stop 
moving  about,  place  their  hands  on  their  sexual  parts. 
The  Polynesians,  before  Christianity,  had  the  custom 
when  standing  upright,  of  holding  theii  scrotum  in  both 
hands  with  the  prong  hanging  between  the  fingers:  the 
posture  of  the  wild  dandy.  Certain  species  lack  scrotum 
as  Pliny  had  already  remarked:  Testes  elephanto  occulti. 
In  camels  the  testicles  roll  beneath  the  skin  of  the  groin; 
rats'  testicles  are  internal,  but  emerge  in  the  rutting  sea- 
son and  assume  an  enormous  development.  Apes  often 
have  the  pouch-skin  blue,  red  or  green,  like  the  other 
bald  parts  of  their  bodies. 

Camels,  dromedaries  and  cats  have  the  end  of  the  penis 
bent  backward  (this  explains  the  tom-cat's  manner  of 
urination),  the  tip  does  not  straighten  itself  or  point  for- 
ward save  in  erection.  Not  only  the  prong  but  the 
sheath  of  rodents  points  backward  and  ends  near  the  anus, 
and  in  front  of  it.  The  penis  is  slender  in  ruminants, 
and  in  wild  boar;  thick  and  round  in  solipedes,  elephant, 
lamentin  (sea-cow,  manatee) ;  thick  and  conic  in  the  dol- 
phin, cylindrical  in  rodents  and  primates.  The  gland, 
which  takes  all  intermediary  forms  between  ball  and 
point,  has  in  the  rhinoceros  the  shape  of  a  gross  fleur-de- 
lys.  In  the  cats  small  spikes  rise  and  point  toward  the 
base,  and  in  agouti  and  gerboa  there  are  holding  flanges 
which  grip  the  organs  of  the  female. 

The  prong  of  many  mammifers,  a  real  member,  is  held 
69 


THE  NATURAL 

up  by  an  interior  bone,  formed  at  the  cost  of  the  con- 
junctive partition  which  separates  the  two  hollow  cham- 
bers. This  penial  bone  is  found  in  many  quadrumanes, 
chimpanzees,  orang-outangs,  most  carnivora,  dogs, 
wolves,  felines,  martin,  otter,  badger,  among  rodents, 
beaver,  seal,  and  cetaceous  animals;  it  is  lacking  in 
ruminants,  pachyderms,  insectivora,  toothless  animals. 
In  man  one  sometimes  finds  a  trace  of  it  in  the  form  of 
a  slender  prismatic  cartilage.  In  the  enormous  penis  of 
the  whale  it  resembles  a  bell-clapper.  The  penial  bone 
diminishes  the  erectile  capacity  of  the  prong  in  stopping 
the  development  of  the  hollow  chambers,  but  it  assures 
the  rigidity  of  the  member,  obtained  in  the  other  penial 
type  by  the  inflow  of  blood  which  causes  the  swelling. 
Man  ought  to  have  the  penial  bone;  he  has  lost  it  in  the 
course  of  ages,  and  this  is  doubtless  fortunate,  for  a 
permanent  rigidity,  or  one  too  easily  obtained  would 
have  increased,  to  madness,  the  salacity  of  his  species. 
It  is  perhaps  for  this  reason  that  great  apes  are  rare, 
although  they  are  strong  and  agile.  This  view  would  be 
confirmed  if  the  penial  cartilage  were  found  regularly  in 
very  lustful  men  or  with  a  certain  frequency  among 
human  races  most  addicted  to  eroticism. 

The  penis  is  found  in  woman  in  the  form  of  clitoris. 
This  is  almost  as  voluminous  as  a  true  penis  in  quad- 
rumanes;  it  is  atrophied  in  other  species.  It  varies  in- 
dividually in  women,  certain  of  them  being  in  this 
respect  quadrumanes.  Sometimes  the  clitoris  is  pierced 
for  the  passage  of  the  urethra  (certain  apes  and  the  mole) ; 
a  slight  trace  of  this  meatus  is  seen  at  the  head  of  the 
woman's  clitoris.  In  species  whose  males  possess  a 
70 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

penial  bone  the  female  has  often  a  clitoridian  bone; 
nothing  more  clearly  affirms  the  parallelism  of  these  two 
organs,  whereof  one  serves  only  for  pleasure,  after  hav- 
ing been,  perhaps  in  a  long  distant  era,  when  man  romped 
among  marine  invertebrates,  a  real  instrument  of  fecun- 
dation. The  greater  labia,  limiting  the  general  orifice  of 
the  vulva,  exist  only  in  woman  and,  less  markedly,  in 
the  female  orang-outang.  Circular  in  rodents,  trans- 
versal in  the  unique  case  of  the  hyena,  a  heteroclite 
animal,  the  vulva  is  longitudinal  in  all  other  mammifers. 
Completely  imperforate  in  the  mole  the  vagina  is  more 
or  less  closed  by  a  membrane,  which  the  male  penis  tears 
in  first  encounter,  in  women,  and  several  quadrumanes, 
certain  small  monkeys,  the  marmoset,  certain  carnivora, 
the  bear,  hyena,  white-bellied  seal,  the  daman  (nailed) ;  it 
is  replaced  in  dog,  cat,  ruminants  by  an  annular  gripping 
between  the  vagina  and  the  vestibule.  The  maidenhead 
is,  therefore,  not  peculiar  to  human  virgins,  and  there  is 
no  glory  in  a  privilege  which  one  shares  with  the  mar- 
moset. 

Menstruation  is  found  in  quadrumanes,  in  bats;  other 
female  mammals  show  an  emission  of  blood,  which  is, 
however,  limited  to  the  rutting  season.  The  position 
of  teats  is  variable,  as  also  their  number,  they  are  in 
the  groin  in  ruminants,  solipedes,  cetaces;  ventral  in 
dogs,  pigs;  pectoral  and  always  two  in  nearly  all  pri- 
mates, chiroptera,  elephants,  and  sirenians,  who  for  this 
reason,  doubtless,  reminded  the  sailors  of  the  ancient 
world  of  their  women. 

Other  particularities  and  correspondences  are  examined 
in  the  next  chapter  which  deals  with  the  mechanism  of 


THE  NATURAL 

love,  and  the  method  used  by  divers  animals  to  make 
use  of  their  organs  according  to  the  commandment  of 
nature.  There  remain  for  consideration  the  lesser 
mammals  and  other  vertebrates  whose  fecundatory  in- 
struments resemble  those  of  mammifera. 

In  man  and  other  placentaires,  the  forked  prong  is 
a  teratological  fact  only  encountered  in  incomplete  double 
monsters.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  general  form 
among  marsupials.  A  double  vagina  corresponds  to  this 
penis,  double  at  least  from  the  gland,  thus  in  kangaroo 
and  opossum.  This  original  biparity  is  found  regularly 
in  the  uterus  of  certain  placentaires,  hares,  rats,  bats, 
carnivora.  The  uterus  of  marsupials  is  simple  without 
narrowing  of  the  throat.  One  knows  that  their  young 
stay  there  but  a  short  time,  that  they  are  born  not  as 
foetus  but  as  germs,  and  complete  their  development  in 
the  marsupial  pouch.  An  opossum,  destined  to  attain 
about  the  size  of  a  cat,  is  at  birth  about  bean-size. 
These  animals,  therefore,  differ  profoundly  from  other 
mammifera. 

Some  reptiles,  like  crocodiles  and  most  chelonians, 
have  only  a  simple  prong;  some  tortoises  have  a  forked 
tip  to  the  penis,  it  is  many-branched  in  the  trionix, 
carnivorous  tortoise  rightly  called  ferocious.  The 
saurians  and  ophidians  can  deploy  outside  the  cloaca  two 
erectile  prongs;  in  saurians,  lizards,  they  are  short,  round 
and  bristle  with  prickles.  The  females  have  no  clitoris 
save  when  the  male  has  a  single  prong;  at  least  the 
clitoris  is  only  well  constituted  in  crocodilians  and 
chelonians. 

Copulation  is  unknown  to  batrachians,  whose  contact 
72 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

is  nevertheless  very  close;  it  is  unknown  to  most  fish, 
whose  amours  are  without  even  contact.  Certain  sela- 
cians  however  (dogfish,  skates),  and  perhaps  also  one  or 
two  teleostians  (bony  fish),  and  the  lamprey,  have  a 
copulating  organ  which  really  enters  the  organ  of  the 
female. 

The  birds  which  have  a  penis  or  an  erectile  and  re- 
tractile tubercle  which  serves,  are  the  ostrich,  the  casso- 
wary, the  duck,  the  swan,  the  goose,  the  bustard,  the 
mandou  and  certain  neighbouring  species;  their  hens 
have  a  clitoridian  organ.  The  ostrich  has  a  true  prong, 
five  or  six  inches  in  length,  cut  by  a  groove  which  serves 
as  conduit  for  the  seminal  liquor;  it  is  enormous  in  erec- 
tion and  tongue-shaped.  The  ostrich  hen  has  a  clitoris 
and  coition  occurs  exactly  as  among  mammals.  The  swan 
and  duck  are  also  very  well  provided  with  an  erectile 
tubercle  suited  for  copulation,  and  this  explains  at  once 
the  story  of  Leda,  the  libidinous  reputation  of  the  duck, 
and  his  exploits  in  the  barn-yards,  veritable  abbeys  of 
Theleme. 

One  can  not  here  describe  the  copulative  organs  of 
arthropodes,  comprising  insects  properly  so-called. 
Enough  to  note  that,  however  varied  their  forms,  they 
behave  very  much  as  those  of  superior  mammifers  and 
are  composed  of  two  essential  parts,  the  penis,  sheathed 
in  a  penial  scabbard,  and  the  vagina,  prolonged  by  the 
copulative  pouch  which  receives  the  penis.  Fish  and 
birds,  lacking  external  apparatus  are  reduced  to  methods 
which  will  be  later  examined.  Hermaphrodite  mollusks, 
with  a  marvellously  complicated  sexual  apparatus,  ought 
73 


THE  NATURAL 

also  to  be  studied  separately.  Finally,  the  amorous 
habits  of  insects  form  a  series  of  illustrative  chapters. 
From  here,  taking  count  only  of  exterior  male  organs 
or  of  organs  which,  internal  when  at  rest,  emerge  at 
the  moment  of  coition,  one  may  attempt  a  vague  and 
new  classification  of  animal  series. 

1.  Presence  of   penis,   or   of   an   erectile  copulating 
tubercle:  placentary  mammals  from  man  to  marsupials 
exclusively;   certain  runners  and  palmipedes;   crocodil- 
ians,    chelonians,    certain    selacians,    arthropodes,    the 
rotifera. 

2.  Presence  of  a  forked  penis:   marsupials,  saurians, 
chelonians;  scorpionides. 

3.  Disjunction  of  the  secreting  apparatus  from  the 
copulating  apparatus:  spiders,  dragon-flies. 

4.  Absence  of  penis,  copulation  by  contact:   mono- 
tremes  (ornithoryncus),  birds,  batrachians,  crustaceans. 

5.  No  copulation;  exterior  fecundation  of  eggs:    fish, 
echinoderms. 

6.  Indirect  transmission  of  sperm  with  or  without  con- 
tact (by  the  spermatophore) :  cephalopodes,  orthoptera. 

7.  Hermaphrodism:  mollusks,  tuniciers,  worms. 

8.  Monagamous  reproduction:  protozoaires,  and  cer- 
tain of  the  last  metazoaires. 

One  needs  many  discriminations  and  exceptions  to  make 
this  table  more  precise.  It  is  however,  not  untrue,  al- 
though incomplete  and  lacking  nuances,  and  it  permits 
one  to  see:  that  the  separation  of  sexes  by  well  char- 
acterized copulating  apparatus  is  not  a  sign  of  animal 
supeiiority,  although  it  is  found  among  the  most  gifted 
animals;  that  birds  with  their  genital  system  merely 
74 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

sketched  in,  seem  to  represent  a  type  elevated  in  nature 
by  the  simplicity  of  organs  and  it  means:  that  the  sexes 
in  animals  who  are  without  copulation  either  profound 
or  superficial,  tend,  as  in  fish,  to  remain  without  differ- 
ence; that  all  other  modes  of  copulation  are  attributed 
exclusively  to  inferior  species;  that  hermaphrodism  was 
but  a  trial  limited  to  a  category  of  creatures  lacking 
everything  not  exclusively  designed  for  the  process  of 
reproduction;  that  the  absence  of  sex  characterizes  only 
the  earliest  forms  of  life. 

If  one  considers  no  longer  the  mode  of  copulation 
but  the  apparatus  itself,  with  the  male  part,  penis,  and 
the  female  part,  vagina,  one  sees  clearly  that  these 
extremely  particular  organs  are  hardly  found  well  de- 
signed save  in  two  great  branchings  where  the  intelligence 
is  most  developed:  mammifera  and  the  arthropodes. 
There  might  be,  perhaps,  a  certain  correlation  between 
complete  and  profound  copulation  and  the  development 
of  the  brain. 


75 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 

I.  Copulation:  vertebrates. — Its  very  numerous  varieties 
and  its  specific  fixity. — The  apparent  immorality  of 
Nature. — Sexual  ethnography. — Human  mechanism. — 
— Cavalage. — The  form  and  duration  of  coupling  in 
divers  mammifers. — Aberrations  of  sexual  surgery,  the 
ampallang. — Pain  as  a  bridle  on  sex. — Maidenhead. — 
The  mole. — Passivity  of  the  female. — The  ovule,  psy- 
chological figure  of  the  female. — Mania  of  attributing 
human  virtues  to  animals. — The  modesty  of  elephants. 
— Coupling  mechanism  in  whales,  seals,  tortoises. — In 
certain  ophidians  and  in  certain  fish. 

i.  COPULATION:  VERTEBRATES. — Forberg's  "Figurae 
Veneris"  exhausts  in  forty-eight  illustrations  the  manners 
of  coupling  accessible  to  the  human  species;  the  erotic 
manuals  of  India  imagine  certain  further  variants  and 
voluptuous  perfectionings,  but  many  of  these  juxtaposi- 
tions are  unfavourable  to  fecundation,  and  a  majority  of 
them  have  only  been  invented  in  order  to  escape  too 
logical  and  too  material  a  result.  Animals  surely,  the 
most  liberated  as  well  as  the  most  stupid,  are  ignorant 
of  all  modes  of  conjugal  fraud;  needless  to  say  no  dis- 
sociation can  be  made  in  their  rudimentary  minds  be- 
tween the  sexual  sensation  and  the  maternal,  between 
76 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

sexual  and  paternal  sensation,  much  less.  The  ingenuity 
of  each  specie  is  small,  but  the  universal  ingenuity  of 
total  fauna  is  immense,  and  there  are  few  human  imagin- 
ings among  those  which  we  term  perverse  and  even  mon- 
strous which  are  not  the  right  and  the  norm  in  one  or 
another  region  of  animal  empire.  Practices  very  analo- 
gous to  (although  very  different  in  aim  from)  divers 
onanist  practices,  to  spermatophagia,  even  to  sadism  are 
imposed  on  innocent  beasts  and  represent  for  them 
familial  virtue  and  chastity.  A  physician,  who  has  not 
obtained  much  glory  thereby,  invented  or  proposed  arti- 
ficial fecundation:  he  was  imitating  spiders  and  dragon- 
flies;  M.  de  Sade  liked  to  imagine  ruttings  where  blood 
and  sperm  flowed  simultaneously;  mere  kindergarten 
manual  (Berquinade)  if  one  contemplate,  not  without 
bewilderment,  the  habits  of  an  ingenious  orthopter,  the 
praying  mantis,  the  insect  which  prays  to  God,  la  prego- 
Diou  as  the  Provengals  call  her,  the  prophetess  as  the 
Greek  said!  Baudelaire's  verses  ridiculing  those  who 
wish 

"aux  choses  de  1'amour  meler  1'honnetete" 
Mix     seemliness     into     affairs     of     Love 

have  a  value  not  only  moral  but  scientific.  In  love  every- 
thing is  just,  everything  is  noble,  as  soon  as,  among  the 
maddest  animals,  it  is  a  play  moved  by  the  desire  of  creat- 
ing. It  is  more  difficult  doubtless  to  justify  fantasies 
which  are  merely  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  trouble, 
especially  if  one  allow  oneself  to  be  blinded  by  the  idea 
of  specific  finality;  one  may  however  affirm,  and  one  will 
say  nothing  more  about  the  matter,  that  animals  are  not 
ignorant  either  of  sodomy  or  of  onanism  and  that  they 
77 


THE  NATURAL 

cede  to  them  by  necessity,  in  the  absence  of  females. 
Senancour  has  written  wise  and  bold  pages  upon  these 
practices  among  humans. 

Sexual  ethnography  hardly  exists.  The  scattered  data 
on  this  subject,  though  extremely  important,  have  not 
been  co-ordinated.  That  would  be  a  small  matter.  They 
have  not  even  been  verified.  One  knows  nothing  of  coital 
practices  save  what  life  teaches  one,  questions  of  this 
sort  being  difficult  to  ask,  and  answers  being  always 
equivocal.  There  is  here  an  entire  science  which  has  been 
corrupted  by  Christian  prudery.  An  order  was  issued 
long  ago  and  is  still  obeyed;  one  has  concealed  all  that 
unites,  sexually,  man  and  animal,  everything  that  proves 
the  unity  of  origin  for  all  that  lives  and  feels.  Physicians 
who  have  studied  this  question  have  known  only  the  ab- 
normal, the  malady:  it  would  be  imprudent  to  base  con- 
clusions on  general  practices  from  their  observations. 
The  best  source,  at  least  for  Europeans,  is  still  the  casuist 
writings.  From  the  enumeration  of  sins  against  chastity 
gathered  by  professional  confessors,  one  could,  after  some 
study,  deduce  the  secret  sexual  habits  of  civilized  human- 
ity. But  one  must  take  care  not  to  retain  either  the  old 
idea  of  sin,  or  the  idea  of  the  same  under  modern  cloak, 
of  fault,  crime  or  error.  Practices  common  to  an  entire 
ethnic  group  can  not  be  judged  to  be  other  than  normal, 
it  matters  little  whether  they  have  been  stigmatized  by 
the  apologists  of  right  living.  What  is  good  is  what  is 
and  what  will  continue  to  be.  It  is  known  that  bimanes 
and  quadrumanes  are  very  libertine,  and  that  this  is  in 
accord  with  their  physical  suppleness  and  their  intelli- 
gence. It  is  a  fact  undeniable  and  insurmountable,  even 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

if  annoying.  The  human  couple  has  drawn  from  this  ten- 
dency a  thousand  erotic  fantasies,  which,  in  being  disci- 
plined have  ended  in  the  creation  of  a  veritable  sexual 
method,  be  it  disinterested  pleasure,  be  it  preservation 
against  fecundity;  is  this  of  no  importance?  How  can 
one  lecture  about  depopulation  if  one  lose  sight  of  this 
primordial  fact?  What  can  normal  or  patriotic  reasoning 
do  against  an  instinct  which  has  become  or  rebecome  an 
intelligent  and  conscious  practice,  bound  to  what  is  deep- 
est in  human  sensibility?  It  is  very  difficult,  especially 
when  dealing  with  man,  to  distinguish  between  normal 
and  abnormal.  What  is  the  normal;  what  the  natural? 
Nature  ignores  this  adjective,  and  one  has  dragged  out  of 
her  bosom  many  illusions,  perhaps  in  irony,  perhaps  in 
ignorance. 

It  is  not  perhaps  very  useful  to  describe  human 
cavalage,  which  is  not  strictly  a  cavalage,  as  the  woman 
is  attacked  from  the  front.  Veritable  cavalage  has  been, 
as  one  knows,  praised  by  Lucretius,  although,  it  has,  and 
this  detracts  nothing  from  its  merits,  an  air  frankly 
animal;  it  is  the  form  of  love  called  by  the  theologians 
more  bestiarum  and  by  Lucretius  more  jerarum  which  is 
the  same  thing: 

Et  quibus  ipsa  modis  tractetur  blanda  voluptas, 
Quoque  permagni  refert;  nam  more  ferarum, 
Quadrupedumque  magis  ritu,  plerumque  putantur 
Concipere  uxores,  quia  sic  loca  sumere  possunt, 
Pectoribus  positis,  sublatis  semina  lumbis. 

This  mode,  considered  by  Lucretius  as  the  more  favour- 
able to  fecundation,  is  that  of  most  mammifers,  of  nearly 
all  insects  and  of  many  animal  families.    Apes  great  and 
79 


THE  NATURAL 

small  know  no  other.  The  architecture  of  their  bodies 
would  make  face  to  face  copulation  very  difficult.  One 
must  not  forget  that  their  upright  position  is  never  more 
than  momentary,  even  in  orangs  and  chimpanzees;  they 
are  not  much  better  equilibrated  than  bears,  much  less 
so  than  kangaroos,  marmosets l  and  squirrels ;  even  when 
they  stand  up  one  feels  that  they  have  four  feet.  Love 
among  them  is  not  free  from  the  seasons,  and  although 
they  are  libidinous  all  the  year,  they  do  not  seem  fit  for 
generation  save  through  the  weeks  of  their  rutting  time: 
then  their  genital  organs  acquire  a  permanent  rigidity; 
the  udders  of  the  females,  ordinarily  as  small  as  those  of 
the  males,  only  swell  during  this  period.  There  is,  there- 
fore, a  vast  difference,  from  the  sexual  standpoint,  be- 
tween man  and  the  great  apes,  his  anatomic  neighbours. 
Man  even  in  the  humblest  species  has  mastered  love  and 
made  it  his  daily  slave,  at  the  same  time  that  he  has 
varied  the  accomplishments  of  his  desire  and  made  possi- 
ble its  renewal  after  brief  interval.  This  domestication 
of  love  is  an  intellectual  work,  due  to  the  richness  and 
power  of  our  nervous  system,  which  is  as  capable  of  long 
silences  as  of  long  physiological  discourses,  of  action  and 
of  reflection.  The  brain  of  man  is  an  ingenious  master 
which  has  managed,  without  possessing  any  very  evident 
superiority,  to  get  out  of  the  other  organs  work  of  the 
most  complicated  sorts,  and  most  finely-sharpened  pleas- 
ures; its  (the  brain's)  mastery  is  very  feeble  in  quadru- 
manes  and  other  animals;  it  is  very  strong  in  insects  as 
will  be  explained  in  a  following  chapter. 

*  Here  R.  de  G.  uses  the  term  marmot te;  up  to  this  the  word 
I  have  translated  marmoset  has  been  ouistiti. 

80 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

One  need  not  wait  for  a  minute  description  of  the  ex- 
terior love  mechanism  of  all  animal  species.  It  would  be 
long,  difficult  and  boresome.  A  few  characteristic  ex- 
amples will  be  enough.  The  duration  of  the  coition  is 
extremely  variable,  even  in  superior  mammals.  Very 
slow  for  dogs,  coupling  is  but  a  thunderclap  for  the  bull, 
the  ram's  is  called  the  "lutte"  (strife).  The  bull  merely 
enters  and  leaves,  and  it  is  a  spectacle  for  philosophers, 
for  one  understands  immediately  that  what  drives  the 
fiery  beast  at  his  female  is  not  the  lure  of  a  pleasure  too 
swift  to  be  deeply  felt,  but  a  force  exterior  to  the  individ- 
ual although  included  in  his  organism.  By  its  long 
grievous  duration  the  coition  of  dogs  leads  to  analogous 
reflections 

In  triviis  quum  saepe  canes  discedere   aventes 
Diversi  cupidine  summis  ex  viribus  tendunt. 

— LUCRETIUS. 

This  is  because  the  dog's  penis  contains  a  hollow  bone 
giving  passage  to  the  urethra.  Around  this  bone  are 
gathered  the  erectile  tissues  whereof  one,  the  node  of  the 
prong,  swells  disproportionately  during  coition  and  pre- 
vents the  separation  of  the  two  animals  after  the  act  is 
accomplished.  They  remain  a  long  time  uncomfortable, 
not  managing  to  free  themselves  until  long  after  their 
desire  has  turned  to  disgust,  grotesque  and  lamentable 
symbol  of  many  a  human  liaison. 

Our  other  familiar  animal,  the  cat,  is  not  more  happy 
in  his  affections.     His  penis  is  indeed  furnished  with 
thorns,  with  horny  papilla  toward  the  tip,  and  the  intro- 
mission as  well  as  the  separation  is  only  accomplished 
81 


THE  NATURAL 

with  groans.  What  one  hears  at  night  are  not  cries  of 
voluptuousness  but  of  suffering,  the  bowlings  of  a  beast 
whom  nature  has  caught  in  the  trap.  This  does  not 
prevent  the  female  from  being  very  enterprising;  respond- 
ing to  the  cries  of  the  pursuing  male  she  excites  him  in  a 
hundred  ways,  biting  at  neck  and  belly  with  an  insistence 
which  has,  they  say,  provided  a  metaphor  in  the  erotic 
vocabulary.  Biting  the  neck  is  much  more  curious,  as 
it  is  of  a  much  less  direct  intention.  Bitches  also  bite  the 
neck  of  the  dog  in  prelude.  For  near  the  neck  is  situated 
the  bulb,  original  knot  of  nerves  governing  the  secret 
parts  and  the  genital  region. 

The  pain  which  accompanies  sexual  acts  ought  to  be 
differentiated,  with  precision,  from  passive  suffering.  It 
is  very  possible  (women  can  testify  to  the  fact)  that 
sighs  and  even  cries  emitted  at  such  time  are  the  ex- 
pression of  a  mixed  sensation,  wherein  joy  has  almost 
as  great  a  part  as  suffering.  We  must  not  judge  feline 
exclamations  from  the  shrillness  of  timbre;  tortured  by 
the  male  prong  the  she-cats  howl,  but  they  await  the  su- 
preme benediction.  The  rigour  of  the  first  approaches  is 
perhaps  but  the  promise  of  deeper  delights:  at  any  rate 
some  women  have  thought  so. 

One  knows  that  a  cat's  tongue  is  rough:  so  is  the  tongue 
and  all  the  mucous  surfaces  of  negroes.  This  roughness 
of  surface  notably  augments  the  genital  pleasure,  as  men 
who  have  known  negresses  testify.  It  has  been  perfected. 
The  Dyaks  of  Borneo  pierce  the  extremity  of  the  penis, 
through  the  navicular  channel  and  fit  into  it  a  pin  to 
both  ends  of  which  are  attached  tufts  of  stiff  hair  in  the 
form  of  a  brush.  Before  surrender  the  women  by  cer- 
82 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

tain  tricks  and  certain  traditional  gestures  indicate  the 
length  of  the  brush  desired.  In  Java  one  replaces  this 
apparatus  known  as  the  ampallang,  by  a  sheath  of  goat 
skin,  more  or  less  thick.  In  other  countries  there  are 
incrustations  of  little  pebbles,  which  give  the  gland  the 
shape  of  an  embossed  mace;  and  these  pebbles  are  some- 
times replaced  by  tiny  bells,  so  that  the  men  make  in 
running  a  sound  like  mules,  and  attentive  women  can 
judge  their  value  according  to  the  intensity  of  their 
sexual  music.  These  customs,  noted  by  de  Paw  among 
certain  aborigines  of  America,  have  not  been  recently 
observed,  doubtless  because  the  Christian  modesty  of 
modern  travellers  has  obliterated  their  eyes  and  ears  at 
convenient  moments.  No  custom  is  abolished  save  in  the 
face  of  some  other  custom  more  useful  to  sensuality,  and 
the  imagination  seems  rather  to  advance  than  to  recede  in 
these  matters.  It  is  true  that  the  inventors  hide  them- 
selves, even  in  savage  countries,  sexual  morality  tending 
toward  uniformity. 

These  artifices,  which  appear  curious  to  us,  have  cer- 
tainly been  created  at  the  instigation  of  women,  since 
theirs  is  the  profit  of  them.  Males  have  submitted  to 
them,  happy  no  doubt  to  be  delivered  at  the  price  of 
passing  pain  from  the  terrible  lasciviousness  of  their  fe- 
males. Racked  and  flayed  by  such  instruments  the 
women  ought,  at  least  for  a  few  days,  to  flee  the  male 
and  brood  in  silence  upon  their  luxurious  memories. 
Chinese  and  Japs,  whose  women  are  likewise  lascivious, 
are  familiar  with  analogous  means;  to  dominate  their 
companions  they  have  also  invented  ingenious  onanist 
methods  which  give  them  time  to  attend  to  their  own 
83 


THE  NATURAL 

affairs,  while  peace  reigns  over  their  hearthstones.  In 
the  strange  dissemblance  between  human  races  the 
Aryans  have,  for  the  same  purpose,  made  use  of  the 
religious  check-rein,  of  prayer,  of  the  idea  of  sin,  and 
finally  of  liberty,  that  is  to  say  of  the  pleasure  of  vanity 
which  bewilders  the  woman,  and  invites  her  to  please 
someone  else  before  satisfying  herself. 

Woman  is  not  the  only  mammal  for  whom,  apart  from 
the  peculiar  form  of  the  penis,  the  first  approaches  are 
painful;  but  there  is  perhaps  no  female  who  has  better 
reason  than  the  mole  for  fearing  the  male.  Her  vulva, 
exteriorly  unperforated,  is  covered  by  hide,  downy  as 
that  of  the  rest  of  her  body;  she  must,  to  be  fecundated, 
undergo  a  veritable  surgical  operation.  One  knows  how 
these  beasts  live,  burrowing  in  search  of  food,  in  long 
subterranean  galleries,  of  which  the  wastage,  pushed  up 
here  and  there  forms  the  mole-ridge.  In  rutting  time, 
forgetting  his  hunting,  the  male  starts  in  quest  of  a 
female;  as  soon  as  he  divines  her,  he  starts  digging  in  her 
direction,  furiously  excavating  the  hostile  earth.  Feeling 
herself  hunted,  the  female  flees.  Hereditary  instinct 
makes  her  tremble  before  the  tool  which  shall  open  her 
belly,  before  the  redoubtable  gimlet-armed  penis  which 
has  perforated  her  mother  and  all  her  female  ancestors. 
She  flees,  digs,  as  the  male  advances,  cross-hatching  tun- 
nels in  which  her  persecutor  may  end  by  losing  his  way; 
but  the  male  also  is  educated  by  heredity:  he  does  not 
follow  the  female  but  circles  round  her,  heads  her  off, 
ends  by  catching  her  in  an  impasse,  and  while  she  is  still 
ramming  her  blind  muzzle  into  the  earth,  he  grips,  oper- 
ates, fecundates.  Charming  emblem  of  modesty,  this 
84 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

small,  soft,  black-pelted  beast.  What  human  virgin  would 
show  such  constancy  in  the  defence  of  her  virtue?  Who, 
alone  in  the  night,  in  a  subterranean  palace,  would  use  her 
hands  to  open  the  walls,  all  her  strength  to  flee  from  her 
suitor?  Philosophers  have  believed  that  sexual  modesty 
was  an  artificial  sentiment,  fruit  of  civilizations:  they  did 
not  know  the  mole's  story,  or  any  of  the  true  stories  in  na- 
ture, for  nearly  all  females  are  timorous,  nearly  all  react, 
at  the  appearance  of  the  male,  in  fear  or  in  flight.  Our 
virtues  are  never  more  than  psychological  tendencies,  and 
the  finest  of  them  are  those  whr  e  explanation  we  are 
forbidden  to  seek.  Why  is  the  slie  .at  violent,  the  she- 
mole  timorous?  Without  doubt  the  she-mole  observes 
the  rule,  even  in  exaggerating  its  severity,  but  why  the 
rule?  There  is  no  rule,  there  are  nothing  but  facts  which 
we  group  in  modes  perceptible  to  our  intelligence,  facts 
which  are  always  provisory,  and  which  a  change  of  per- 
spective can  denaturize.  The  notion  of  a  rule,  the  notion 
of  a  law,  confession  of  our  impotence  to  pursue  a  fact 
into  the  logical  origins  of  its  genealogy.  The  law  is  a 
fashion  of  speaking,  an  abbreviation,  a  point  of  rest.  The 
law  is  half  the  facts  plus  one.  Every  law  is  at  the  mercy 
of  an  accident,  an  unexpected  encounter ;  and  yet,  without 
the  idea  of  law  all  would  be  mere  night  in  our  conscious- 
ness. 

"The  male,"  says  Aristotle,  in  his  Treatise  on  Genera- 
tion, "represents  the  specific  form,  the  female,  the  matter. 
She  is  passive,  in  so  much  as  she  is  female;  the  male  is 
active." 

Sexual  modesty  is  a  fact  of  sexual  passivity.  The 
moment  will  come  for  the  female  to  be  in  her  turn  active 
85 


THE  NATURAL 

and  strong,  when  she  has  been  fecundated,  and  when 
she  must  give  birth  and  food  to  the  posterity  of  her  race. 
The  male  then  becomes  inert;  equable  sharing  of  the 
expense  of  forces,  just  division  of  labour.  This  passivity 
of  the  female  element  is  found  again  in  the  very  figura- 
tion of  animality,  formed  by  the  egg  and  the  spermato- 
zoide.  One  sees  the  play  under  the  microscope:  the  egg 
waits,  solid  as  a  fortress  or  as  a  woman  whom  many  men 
look  on  and  covet;  the  little  animals  begin  their  attack, 
they  besiege  the  enclosure,  they  butt  it  with  their  heads; 
one  of  them  breaks  the  wall,  he  enters,  and  as  soon  as 
his  tad-pole  tail  passes  the  breach,  the  wound  recloses. 
The  entire  activity  of  this  embryonic  female  reduces  it- 
self to  this  gesture;  the  greater  part  of  her  great  sisters 
know  no  other.  Their  free-will  nearly  always  consists  in 
this:  they  receive  one  among  the  arrivals,  without  one's 
being  able  to  know  very  well  whether  the  choice  is  psy- 
chological or  mechanical. 

The  female  waits,  or  flees,  which  is  but  another  way 
of  waiting,  the  active  way;  for  not  only  se  cupit  ante 
videnti  but  she  desires  to  be  taken,  she  wishes  to  fulfill  her 
destiny.  It  is  doubtless  for  this  reason  that,  in  species 
where  the  male  is  feeble  or  timid,  the  female  resigns  her- 
self to  an  aggression  demanded  by  care  for  future  genera- 
tions. In  short,  two  forces  are  present,  the  magnet  and 
the  needle.  Usually  the  female  is  the  magnet,  sometimes 
she  is  the  needle.  These  are  details  of  mechanism  which 
do  not  modify  the  general  march  of  the  machine  to  its 
goal.  At  the  origin  of  all  feeling  there  is  a  fact  irreducible 
and  incomprehensible  in  itself.  Common  reasoning  starts 
from  the  feeling  to  explain  the  fact;  this  gives  the  absurd 
86 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

result  of  making  thought  run  in  a  set  track,  like  a  horse 
in  a  circus.  Kantian  ignorantism  is  the  masterpiece  of 
these  training  exercises,  where,  starting  from  the  categoric 
stable  the  learned  quadruped  necessarily  thither  returns, 
having  jumped  through  all  the  paper  disks  of  scholastic 
reasoning.  Observers  of  animal  habits  fall  regularly  into 
the  prejudice  of  attributing,  regularly,  to  beasts  directive 
principles  which  only  a  long  philosophic  education  and 
especially  Christianity  have  rammed  into  restive  human 
docility.  Toussenel  and  Romanes  are  rarely  superior  to 
the  possessors  of  a  prodigious  dog  or  miraculous  cat:  one 
must  reject  as  apocryphal  the  anecdotes  of  animals'  in- 
telligence, and  especially  those  boasting  their  sensibility, 
or  celebrating  their  virtues;  not  that  these  are  of  neces- 
sity, inexact,  but  because  the  manner  of  interpreting  them 
has  vitiated,  in  principle,  the  manner  of  observation. 
One  sole  observer  appears  to  me  trustworthy  in  these  mat- 
ters, namely  J.  H.  Fabre,  the  man  who,  since  Reaumur, 
has  penetrated  furthest  into  the  intimacy  of  insects,  and 
whose  work  is  veritably  the  creator,  perhaps  without  his 
having  suspected  it,  of  a  general  psychology  of  animals. 
The  madness  of  attributing  to  beasts  the  intuitive 
knowledge  of  our  moral  catechism  has  created  the  legend 
of  the  elephant's  sexual  modesty.  These  chaste  monsters 
hide,  they  say,  to  make  love;  animated  by  a  wholly 
romantic  sensibility,  they  can  not  give  way  to  their  feel- 
ings save  in  the  mystery  of  the  jungle,  in  the  labyrinth  of 
the  virgin  forests:  that  is  why  they  have  never  been 
known  to  breed  in  captivity.  Nothing  is  more  idiotic; 
the  elephant  in  the  public  garden  or  the  circus  is  ready 
enough  to  make  love,  although  with  less  enthusiasm  than 
87 


THE  NATURAL 

in  his  native  forest,  as  is  the  case  with  nearly  all  beasts 
newly  captive.  He  breeds  under  man's  eye  with  perfect 
indifference,  and  no  showman  can  prevent  the  she- 
elephant,  who  is  very  lecherous,  from  manifesting  with 
full  voice  her  shameless  desires.  As  her  vulva  opens  not 
between  her  legs  but  toward  the  middle  of  her  abdomen, 
Buffon  believed  that  she  had  to  lie  on  her  back  to  receive 
the  male.  This  is  not  so,  but  she  has  to  make  a  par- 
ticular gesture:  she  kneels. 

Whales  who  are  by  far  the  greatest  mammals,  obey 
a  special  rite,  imposed  by  their  lack  of  members  and  the 
element  in  which  they  live;  the  two  colossi  heave  over 
on  their  sides  like  sprung  ships,  and  join  obliquely,  belly 
to  belly.  The  male  organ  is  enormous,  even  in  the  state 
of  rest,  six  or  eight  feet  long  and  fifteen  or  sixteen  inches 
in  circumference.  The  vulva  of  the  female  is  longi- 
tudinal ;  near  it  is  found  the  udder  which  projects  greatly 
when  she  gives  suck.  This  udder  has  ejectory  power,  the 
whale  cub  hooks  on  by  his  lips,  and  the  milk  is  sent  to 
him  as  from  a  pump,  marvellous  accommodation  of 
organs  to  the  necessities  of  the  milieu. 

Anatomy  forces  female  seals  and  walruses  to  turn  over 
to  receive  the  male.  In  the  specie  commonly  called  the 
sea-lion,  she  seems  according  to  observations  perhaps  too 
sketchy,  to  make  the  advances.  The  male  being  stretched 
out  at  rest  she  rolls  before  him,  plagues  him,  while  he 
grumbles.  She  succeeds  in  moving  him,  and  they  go  to 
play  in  the  water.  On  return  the  female  lies  on  her 
back,  the  male  who  is  much  thicker  and  longer  covers 
her,  propping  himself  on  his  arms.  The  coupling  lasts 
seven  or  eight  minutes.  The  posture  of  female  seals  is 
88 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

also  that  of  hedgehogs,  and  truly  the  cavalage  here  must 
be  particularly  thorny.  Despite  his  roof  the  male  tor- 
toise climbs  onto  the  female  and  installs  himself  there, 
clinging  to  her  shell  with  the  nails  of  his  forefeet;  there 
he  stays  fifteen  days  having  slowly  introduced  into  her 
patient  organs  his  long  round  prong,  ending  in  a  sort 
of  pointed  ball,  pressing  with  all  his  strength  the  enormous 
clitoris  of  the  female.  We  find  ourselves  far  from  mam- 
mifers  and  from  the  excitability  of  the  bull ;  this  coupling 
which  lasts  a  whole  season  leads  us  toward  the  voluptuous 
laziness  of  disgusting  and  marvellous  gasteropodes.  Ac- 
cording to  tales  which  are,  perhaps,  not  contradictory, 
crocodiles  couple  in  the  water,  according  to  some,  and  on 
land  according  to  others;  in  water  laterally;  on  land,  the 
female  on  her  back.  It  is  said  to  be  the  male  who  puts 
her  on  her  back,  and  who,  coition  completed,  helps  her 
to  right  herself;  charming  spectacle,  which  I  can  not 
guarantee  to  be  so,  but  which  would  improve  our  idea 
of  the  gallantry  of  these  ancient  divinities. 

I  don't  know  whether  anyone  has  ever  remarked  that 
the  caduceus  of  Mercury  represents  two  serpents  coupled. 
To  describe  the  caduceus  is  to  describe  the  love  mech- 
anism of  ophidians.  The  bifurcated  penis  penetrates  the 
vagina,  the  bodies  interlace  fold  on  fold  while  the  two 
heads  rise  over  the  stiffened  coils  and  look  fixedly  at  each 
other,  for  a  long  time,  eye  gazing  into  eye. 

Certain  fish  have  penial  organs;  they  can  then  realize 
true  copulation;  thus  dog-fish,  bounce,  sharks,  sea-hinds 
(biches).  The  males  grip  the  females  and  hold  them 
with  hooks  often  formed  at  the  expense  of  the  abdominal 
fin,  by  cartilaginous  pieces  which  penetrate  the  female 
89 


THE  NATURAL 

orifice  and  serve  as  slide  to  the  penis.  The  male  skate 
seizes  the  female,  turns  her  over,  clamps  himself  to  her, 
belly  to  belly,  holds  her  with  his  penial  tentacles  and 
finishes  the  coupling,  releasing  his  seed  which  flows  into 
the  cloaca.  The  operation  is  repeated  several  times; 
separated  by  the  emission  of  skatelets  who  are  bora  alive, 
it  continues  until  the  female  has  discharged  the  greater 
part  of  her 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER  X 

MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 

//.  Copulation  (continued). — Arthropodes. — Scorpions. 
— Large  aquatic  crustaceans. — Small  crustaceans. — The 
hydradhne.  —  Scutilary. —  Cockchafer. —  Butterflies. — 
Flies,  etc. — Variation  of  animals'  sexual  habits. 

AMONG  insects,  batrachians,  and  mollusks  one  finds  the 
most  curious  modes  of  fecundation  and  those  furthest 
removed  from  the  usual  mechanism  of  mammals;  before 
coming  to  that  we  will  give  a  few  examples,  toward  form- 
ing an  idea  of  the  sexual  habits  of  various  species  chosen 
from  the  arthropodes.  In  scorpions,  let  us  say,  terrestrial 
representatives  of  aquatic  crustaceans:  the  two  sexes  are 
identical,  genital  organs  usually  invisible,  hidden  between 
the  abdomen  and  the  cephalothorax,  the  front  part  of  it 
where  the  head  without  neck  is  prolonged  directly  into 
the  thorax.  The  male  is  provided  with  two  rigid  penes 
englobed  in  a  sheath — double  but  forming  a  single  canal ; 
holding  the  female  belly  to  belly  he  inserts  them  in  the 
vulva,  one  branch  bending  to  the  left,  the  other  to  the 
right  toward  each  of  the  two  oviducts.  Same  mechanism 
in  crustaceans,  save  in  the  rare  cases  when  they  are  her- 
maphrodite. Lobsters,  langousts,  ectevisses,  crabs,  like 
the  scorpion,  couple  in  a  manner  singularly  resembling 
that  of  humans.  Curious  spectacle,  that  of  the  hen  lob- 


THE  NATURAL 

ster  attacked  by  the  male,  turned  on  her  back,  patiently 
permitting  him  to  stretch  over  her,  enlacing  her  claws 
and  his  pincers!  Vision  of  a  sabbat  which  Callot  or 
Dore  would  only  have  painted  in  fear.  Perhaps  one 
would  consider  this  before  opening  the  armoured  belly 
of  these  beasts  who  have  bred  their  species  among  algae, 
and  in  holes  of  the  rocks?  The  genital  glands  of  crus- 
taceans are  excellent;  people  gladly  eat  those  of  the  sea- 
anemone;  the  only  good  part  of  these  spiny  animals.  The 
males  of  the  greater  crustaceans  have  erectile  ejectory 
canals,  rising  in  the  form  of  double  prong  between  the 
forefeet;  the  females  are  correspondingly  provided  with 
two  vulvae  opening  in  the  third  sternal  segment,  or  at 
the  base  of  the  feet  corresponding  to  this  segment.  Copu- 
lation is  effected  by  quick  acts,  reiterated  two  or  three 
times,  lasting  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  The  male  of  the 
fresh  water  prawn  who  swims  leaning  on  his  side,  holds 
his  female  between  his  claws  and  progresses  by  bounds; 
she  is  much  smaller  than  he  is.  Same  mechanism  in 
aselle  and  talitre  or  sea-flea. 

There  are  many  singularities  in  the  sexual  habits  of 
small  crustaceans,  the  male  bopyre  lives  as  parasite  on 
the  female,  who  is  four  or  five  times  larger;  oddity  in- 
creased by  the  female  herself  being  the  parasite  of  the 
palemon.  It  is  she  who  forms  the  little  bloatedness  which 
one  notices,  grayish  when  cooked,  on  the  heads  of  shrimps, 
turned  pink.  Fishermen  state  that  this  spot  is  a  small 
sole,  but  they  also  tell  other  yams:  for  example,  that 
anatifes,  the  peduncular  mussels  which  one  sees  on 
drift-wood  are  the  embryos  of  wild-ducks,  and  one  noble 
92 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

sailor  has  himself  seen  them  taking  flight.1  The  male 
linguatula  is  also  smaller  than  the  female,  he  has  one 
testicle  but  two  long  copulating  organs  which  simultane- 
ously penetrate  the  female,  ejaculating  toward  the  two 
ovaries.  Another  small  male  is  the  hydrachne,  water 
acarian,  two  or  three  times  smaller  than  the  female,  he 
alone  is  provided  with  a  tail  at  the  end  of  which  are  his 
genital  organs;  the  female's  are  formed  by  a  papilla  situ- 
ated beneath  the  belly  and  marked  by  a  white  patch  sur- 
rounding the  sluice.  The  male  swims,  the  female  comes 
to  meet  him,  lifts  herself  obliquely  and  brings  her  white 
spot  into  touch  with  her  lover's  caudal  extremity,  the 
junction  is  accomplished.  One  then  sees  the  male  drag 
along  the  kicking  female;  the  coupling,  with  periods  of 
rest,  but  without  interruption  of  profound  contact  con- 
tinues for  several  days. 

With  insects  of  superior  talents  it  is,  on  the  contrary, 
the  female  who  carries  off  the  male:  the  ant  carries  hers 
on  her  back,  while  he  bends  his  abdomen  into  a  bow 
toward  her  vulva;  thus  weighted,  she  flies,  mounts, 
planes,  then  falls  with  him  like  a  drop  of  water.  He  dies 
on  the  spot,  the  female  gets  up,  returns  to  the  nest,  lays, 
before  dying.  The  fetes  of  the  ant  are  of  the  whole 
ant  hill  at  once,  the  fall  of  the  lovers  like  a  golden  cas- 
cade, and  the  resurrection  of  the  females  gleams  in  the 
sun  like  a  russet  foam.  The  scutilary  is  an  insect  some- 
times squarish  or  shield-shaped  resembling  the  green 

1  The  name  of  these  cirripedes  bears  witness  to  this  supersti- 
tion: anatife  is  the  abridgement  of  anatifere,  duck- bearing,  latin 
anas,  anatis.  "A  tree  equally  marvelous,  is  that  which  produces 
barnacles,  for  the  fruits  of  this  tree  change  into  birds."  (Mande- 
ville's  Travels.) 

93 


THE  NATURAL 

wood  louse,  sometimes  long  and  cylindrical  with  points 
and  lines  of  all  colours  on  its  wings.  One  of  them,  scuti- 
form,  known  as  lineata,  with  red  back  and  black  stripes, 
is  common  on  umbellifera.  Copulation  takes  place  end 
to  end;  one  can  see  them  thus,  the  female  towing 
the  smaller  male  from  leaf  to  leaf,  from  umbel  to  umbel.1 
The  forficula  also  couple  end  to  end,  fleas,  whose  male 
is  smaller,  couple  belly  to  belly  with  feet  enlaced;  the 
position  recalling  that  of  dragon  flies  is  more  remark- 
able, in  the  louvette,  a  small  insect  which  lives  on  broom, 
and  readily  throws  itself  upon  man:  the  vulva  is  in  fact, 
near  the  mouth. 

Coleoptera  are  given  to  cavalage,  of  duration  varying 
from  ten  hours  to  two  days.  The  male  cockchafer  pur- 
sues the  female  with  fervour,  he  is  so  ardent  that  he  often 
mounts  other  males,  deceived  by  the  odour  of  rut  floating 
in  the  air.  He  seizes  the  female  and  holds  her  clamped 
by  his  forelegs  and  genital  hooks.  The  union  continues 
a  day  and  a  night,  finally  the  male,  exhausted,  falls 
over  backward,  and  still  hooked  by  the  penial  pincers,  is 
dragged  along  on  his  back  by  the  impassive  female  who 
moves  on  feeding,  pulling  him  over  the  leaves  until  death 
detaches  him;  then  she  lays  and  dies  in  her  turn.  But- 
terflies are  likewise  very  fervent,  the  males  make  veritable 
voyages  in  quest  of  females,  as  Fabre  has  proved.  They 
often  fly  coupled,  the  stronger  female  easily  carrying  the 

'This  does  not  seem  to  be  general.  I  have  recently  observed, 
on  the  umbels  of  wild  carrots,  numerous  couples  of  scutilaries, 
proceeding  by  cavalage,  the  male  inert,  couched  on  the  walking 
female,  who  started  at  the  least  alarm.  Form  narrow,  almost 
cylindrical;  colour:  orange  red,  with  two  short  black  bands: 
strong  sucker,  long  antennae.  Union  lasting  at  least  a  day  and 
a  night.— R.  de  G. 

94 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

male:  it  is  a  quite  frequent  sight  in  the  country,  these 
butterflies  with  four  wings  who  roll,  a  little  bewildered 
from  flower  to  flower,  drunken  ships  going  where  the 
sails  bid  them.  With  flies,  feminism  is  brought  frankly 
into  the  love  mechanism.  The  females  have  the  copu- 
lative apparatus ;  they  force  their  oviduct,  then  a  veritable 
prong,  into  the  male's  belly;  it  is  the  females  who  make 
the  mastering  gesture,  the  male  merely  grips  this  gimlet 
with  the  hooks  which  surround  his  genital  fent.  It  is 
this  same  augur  which  the  female  uses  to  bore  the  wood, 
or  earth  or  flesh  where  she  deposits  her  eggs.  The  coup- 
ling is  end  to  end,  and  one  of  the  easiest  to  observe. 

Here  are  enough  examples  to  show  what  is  per- 
manent in  the  mechanism  of  true  copulation,  and  what 
is  variable  in  its  exterior  modes.  Given  the  two  chief 
pieces  of  the  apparatus,  the  sword  and  the  scabbard,  na- 
ture, as  one  might  say,  leaves  it  to  the  imagination  of 
each  specie  to  decide  the  best  manner  of  using  them; 
all  ways  seem  good  if  they  fecundate.  Nature  has  still 
more  remarkable  methods,  for  the  sexual  inventions  of 
humanity  are  nearly  all  anterior  or  exterior  to  man. 
There  is  not  one  whose  model,  even  perfected,  is  not 
offered  him  by  the  animals,  by  the  most  humble  of 
animals. 

If  there  is  no  general  rule,  if  there  is  no  one  moral  man- 
ner of  fecundating  a  female,  one  must  recognize  that  the 
same  mode  is  fixed  in  the  same  specie,  in  the  same  genus 
or  family.  I  do  not  think  that  anyone  has  observed  vari- 
ation in  the  sexual  habits  of  an  animal;  yet  acts  of 
sheer  disembarrassment  being  possible,  one  can  not  con- 
sider the  love  method  as  being  rigorously  fixed.  It  has 
95 


THE  NATURAL 

varied  in  social  bees,  parting  from  the  relation  of  the 
couple,  the  aggression  of  the  male,  to  end  in  the  political 
and  autocratic  fecundation  of  a  sole  female  by  a  sole  male 
chosen  among  an  hundred  slave  favourites.  The  mechan- 
ism itself  must  have  changed  with  the  change  of  the  or- 
gans, complying  with  corporal  circumstances  and  with 
those  of  the  milieu,  under  pressure  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem which  demands  acts  without  caring  for  the  instru- 
ments which  must  execute  them.  One  finds  proof  of  these 
changes  in  the  accidental  hermaphrodism  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  invertebrates  and  even  of  fishes,  such  as  the  cod, 
the  herring,  the  scomber:  a  fundamental  change  since  it 
shifts  the  animal  from  a  superior  to  an  inferior  category; 
a  recall  to  origins,  doubtless,  and  an  indication  that  the 
species  liable  to  such  accidents  are  far  from  being  physio- 
logically fixed.  It  is  very  probable  that  analogous  acci- 
dents, less  accentuated,  visible  sometimes  in  exterior  mal- 
formation, invisible  in  their  psychological  influence,  are 
the  cause  of  certain  tendencies  in  contrast  to  the  sex  ap- 
parent or  even  real.  But  this  does  not  yet  answer  the 
main  question:  are  there  in  animals,  apart  from  purely 
mechanical  aberrations,  erotic  fantasies?  One  can 
not  answer  with  certainty.  The  animal  merely  follows 
a  groove;  when  he  has  gone  through  it,  if  he  lives  for 
another  season,  he  merely  goes  over  the  same  ground,  at- 
tentive to  the  same  need,  submitted  always  to  the  same 
gestures.  Very  true,  but  the  animals  familiar  to  man  or 
his  neighbours,  the  dog,  the  ape,  perhaps  the  cat,  are 
assuredly  capable  of  erotic  fantasies;  it  is  therefore  diffi- 
cult to  deny  this  tendency  to  other  animals,  to  the  so 
intelligent  hymenoptera,  for  example.  Who  knows,  more- 
96 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

over,  whether  certain  eccentric  modes  of  copulation  are 
not  fixed  fantasies,  become  habit  and  having  supplanted 
an  anterior  method,  the  animal  being  little  able  to  employ 
two  customs  at  once? 

What  we  have  found,  at  least,  is  that  the  love  mech- 
anism is,  in  nature,  of  infinite  variety,  and  that  if  it  ap- 
pears stable  in  most  of  the  fixed  species,  it  is,  in  its 
entirety  extremely  oscillating,  capricious,  and  fantastic. 


97 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   MECHANISM   OF   LOVE 

///.  Of  birds  and  fish. — Males  without  penis. — Coup- 
ling by  simple  contact. — Salacity  of  birds. — Copulation 
of  batrachians:  accoucheur  toad,  aquatic  toad,  earth 
toad,  pipa  toad. — Foetal  parasitism. — Chastity  of  fish. 
— Sexes  separated  in  love. — Onanistic  fecundation. — 
Cephalopodes,  the  spermatophore. 

III.  Of  birds  and  fish.  It  is  toward  the  middle  of  the 
second  month  that  the  separation  of  the  cloaca  into  two 
regions  is  marked  in  the  human  foetus:  a  partition  is 
formed  which  will  absolutely  isolate  the  digestive  chan- 
nel from  the  uro-genital.  The  persistence  of  the  cloaca 
is  not  a  sign  of  primitivity,  since  one  finds  it  in  selacians, 
batrachians,  reptiles,  monotremes  and  birds.  The  uro- 
genital  region  of  marsupials  and  of  several  rodents  is 
submitted  to  a  single  sphincter,  witness  of  original  union. 
The  bird's  cloaca  is  divided  into  three  chambers,  for 
the  three  functions,  the  outer  orifice  being  necessarily 
unique,  by  definition.  It  is  with  this  rudimentary  ap- 
paratus that  most  birds  turn  to  the  pleasures  of  love. 
The  male  being  wholly  deprived  of  any  erectile  tissue, 
coition  is  by  simple  contact,  a  pressure,  perhaps  a  rub- 
bing; displeasing  as  the  comparison  may  be,  it  is  a  play 
analogous  to  the  mouth  to  mouth  kiss,  or,  if  one  prefer, 
98 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

to  the  pressing  of  two  sapphists  clasped  vulva  to  vulva. 
Far  from  being  a  regression  or  a  stop,  it  is  perhaps  a 
progress,  the  male  at  least  gaining  in  security  and  vigour, 
being  obliged  to  very  little  muscular  development.  The 
salacity  of  certain  birds  is  well  known,  and  one  does  not 
see  that  the  absence  of  an  exterior  penis  diminishes  their 
ardour,  or  attenuates  the  pleasure  which  they  find  in  these 
succinct  contacts.  Perhaps  the  direct  genital  pleasure  is 
concentrated  in  a  vascular  papilla  which  swells  a  little 
at  the  moment  of  the  approaches;  this  is  very  rudimen- 
tary, often  unnoticeable  but  it  seems  to  be  an  exciting 
organ,  the  producer  of  pleasure.  The  male  mounts  the 
female,  holds  her  with  feet  and  beak,  the  two  cloaca  are 
superposed,  the  sperm  flows  into  the  oviduct.  One  sees 
sparrows  repeat  the  sexual  act  as  often  as  twenty  times, 
always  with  the  same  excitement,  the  same  expression  of 
contentment;  the  female  tires  first,  and  shows  her  im- 
patience. Birds'  habits  are  especially  interesting  in 
reason  of  the  play  with  which  they  surround  their  love 
making,  their  parades,  their  combats;  we  will  deal  with 
this  in  later  chapters. 

Batrachians  live  for  hardly  anything  save  reproduction. 
Outside  their  season  of  love,  they  remain  stupefied.  The 
rut  over-excites  them,  and  these  slow,  frozen  animals 
then  show  themselves  ardent  and  implacable.  The  males 
fight  for  the  possession  of  females;  having  seized  a  female, 
nothing  will  make  the  male  let  go.  One  has  seen  him 
stick  to  his  post  even  after  his  hind  legs  were  cut  off, 
even  after  losing  half  his  body.  Yet  the  copulation  is 
mere  simulacrum,  it  takes  place  by  simple  contact  in  the 
absence  of  exterior  organs,  even  in  salamanders,  despite 
99 


THE  NATURAL 

the  pads  which  surround  the  cloaca,  sketch  of  an  appara- 
tus which  has  remained  extremely  rudimentary,  or  pos- 
sibly problematic.  With  anours,  the  male,  smaller  than 
the  female,  climbs  on  her  back,  passes  his  forefeet,  his 
arms,  under  her  armpits  and  remains  skin  to  skin  for  a 
month,  for  two  months.  At  the  end  of  this  time  the 
pressed  flanks  of  the  female  finally  let  fall  the  eggs,  and 
he  fecundates  them  as  they  fall.  Such  is  the  coupling  of 
frogs,  lasting  from  fifteen  to  twenty  days.  The  male 
clambers  onto  the  female,  encircles  her  with  his  arms, 
crosses  his  hands  over  her  breast,  and  holds  her  tightly 
embraced.  He  then  remains  immobile,  in  an  ecstatic 
state,  insensible  to  every  external  shock,  to  every  wound. 
It  would  seem  that  the  sole  aim  of  this  enlacing  is  to 
exercise  a  pressure  on,  or  to  cause  an  excitement  in,  the 
belly  of  the  female  and  to  make  her  deliver  her  eggs. 
She  lays  a  thousand  and  the  male  sprays  them  with  sperm 
as  they  pass. 

All  the  anours  (tailless  batrachians)  thus  press  their 
females  like  lemons;  but  the  method  of  fecundating  the 
eggs  is  quite  variable.  The  mid-wife  toad  enlaced  like 
the  others,  aids  the  emergence  of  the  egg  garland  with 
his  hind  feet,  he  unrolls  it  grain  by  grain,  with  devotion, 
while  the  female,  immobile  emptier,  lends  herself  willingly 
to  this  manoeuvre,  which  she  feels  perhaps  as  a  caress. 
The  aquatic  toad  does  not  pull  at  the  garland,  he  receives 
it  in  his  paws,  and  when  he  has  ten  eggs  or  so,  he  sprinkles 
them,  ejaculating  with  a  movement  of  the  flanks,  which 
old  Roesel  *  compares  to  that  of  a  dog's  in  coition.  As 
for  the  common  land  toad,  whose  note  sounds  like  a 

*In  bis  "Historia  Naturalis  Ranarum,"  1758,  Bufo  aquaticus. 
ICO 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

pure  crystal  bell  in  calm  of  the  evening,  he  waits  until 
all  the  eggs  have  emerged,  he  arranges  them  in  a  heap, 
then  excited  by  somersaults,  he  drenches  the  lot  of  them. 
But  no  batrachian  patience  is  as  curious  as  that  of  the 
pipa  toad.  This  is  a  hideous  beast  with  small  eyes, 
mouth  surrounded  with  whisker-prickles,  skin  blackish 
green,  full  of  warts  and  swellings.  As  the  eggs  are  laid 
the  male  fecundates  them,  then  taking  them  in  his  large 
webbed  feet  he  spreads  them  out  on  the  female's  back. 
Around  each  egg  there  forms  a  little  protective  pustule, 
in  which  the  young  hatch.  The  female  on  whom  a  hatch 
commences  offers  the  odd  spectacle  of  a  back  whence,  here 
and  there,  heads  and  feet  are  sprouting,  or  from  which 
emerge  little  toads  as  if  born  of  a  paradox.1  This  forma- 
tion is  another  proof  that  nature  finds  anything  good 
which  happens  to  attain  her  purpose,  and  that  she  cares 
only  for  the  perpetuation  of  life.  An  incubatorial  pocket 
was  necessary,  and  she  had  forgotten  it;  no  matter,  the 
animal  will  make  one  for  itself,  at  its  own  expense  or  at 
the  expense  of  some  other  specie.  The  small  pipas  exer- 
cize a  real  parasitism,  ordered  by  an  absent-mindedness 
of  nature.  Whether  the  deposit  of  eggs  be  in  the  mother's 
back  or  in  the  tissue  of  some  other  animal  the  parasitism 
is  no  less  evident,  at  most  it  is  a  question  of  degree. 
From  this  point  of  view  it  will  be  possible  to  consider 
the  normal,  internal  evolution  of  sexual  products  as  a 
parasitic  evolution:  the  young  of  the  mammal  is  a  para- 
site of  its  mother,  as  the  little  ichneumon  is  a  parasite  of 

lrrhe  back  as  gestative  chamber  is  also  found  in  woodlice, 
during  one  of  their  parthenogenetic  phases,  cf.  Fabre  "Souvenirs" 
VII,  les  Pucerons  du  terebinthe. 

101 


THE  NATURAL 

the  caterpillar  which  serves  it  as  uterus.  Thus  consid- 
ered the  notion  of  parasitism  temporary  or  larval  will 
disappear,  or,  rather,  take  a  much  greater  extension,  en- 
veloping a  considerable  number  of  facts  up  till  now 
separated  in  irreducible  categories. 

Fecundation  by  contact  is  very  rare  in  fish,  other  than 
selacians.  One  hardly  finds  it  save  in  lophobranchi  and 
certain  other  viviparous  fish,  such  as  the  blenny ;  the  milt 
penetrates  the  female  organs  without  copulation,  and  the 
eggs  develop  either  in  these  organs,  or  in  a  pouch  which 
the  male  carries  under  his  belly,  or  even  in  the  male's 
mouth,  he  having  thus  the  virtue  of  assuring  the  birth 
of  his  offspring.  The  lophobranchi  are  wholly  singular 
fish,  one  of  them,  the  sea-horse,  horse-headed  ludion, 
gives  a  good  idea  of  the  family.  Ordinary  fish,  such  as 
one  knows  and  eats,  however  M.  de  Lacepede  may  have 
classified  them,  are  chaste  animals  void  of  all  erotic 
fantasy. 

What  would  appear  to  be  the  essential  of  pleasure  is 
unknown  to  them.  The  males  do  not  know  possession 
nor  the  females  surrender,  no  touch,  no  rubbings,  no 
caress.  The  object  of  male  desire  is  not  the  female  but 
the  eggs,  he  watches  for  those  she  is  about  to  lay,  he 
searches  for  those  she  has  laid,  an  excitement  quite  like 
those  produced  by  onanism,  or  which  are  engendered  by 
fetishism  in  certain  distorted  minds  and  which  operate 
at  the  sight  of  a  slipper  or  ribbon,  and  die  down,  even 
to  frigidity  in  the  presence  of  the  woman  herself.  The 
fish  spends  his  semen  on  eggs  which  he  finds  floating 
and  whose  mother  he  has  never  seen.  Often  both  eggs 
and  male  milt  are  left  floating  and  meet  only  in  the 
102 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

chance  of  current  and  wave.  Sometimes  fish  form  a 
separate  couple.  The  female  swims  up  stream,  stops 
over  a  grass  or  sand  bottom,  the  male  follows,  obeying 
her  gesture.  Such  habits  have  permitted  people  to 
breed  fish  with  as  great  a  certainty  as  they  breed  mush- 
rooms, or  more  so.  One  takes  a  female  swelled  with 
eggs,  squeezes  her  like  an  orange,  then  one  empties  a 
male  of  his  milt,  and  nature  takes  charge  of  the  rest. 
This  procedure  is  not  possible  with  certain  species  which 
act  in  concert,  the  male  tilted  onto  his  back,  his  genital 
orifice  beneath  that  of  the  female,  and  ejaculating  in  time 
with  her. 

One  knows  that  salmon  swim  up  rivers  in  troops,  often 
very  dense,  and  into  the  branch  streams  and  creeks,  to 
lay  their  spawn  in  quiet,  favorable  nooks.  Then  they 
go  down  stream  worn  out  by  the  dams  and  waterfalls 
which  they  have  mounted  by  tail-swishing,  and  tired  by 
their  genital  exercises.  The  column  is  often  led  by  a 
female,  the  other  females  follow.  Then  swim  the  old 
males  and  lastly  the  young  males.  When  the  leaderess 
has  found  a  suitable  place,  one  of  the  roes  stops,  hollows 
the  sand  with  her  belly,  leaves  a  packet  of  eggs  in  the 
hole,  an  old  male  drenches  them  at  once,  but  the  patri- 
arch has  been  followed  by  young  bucks  who  imitate 
him  and  fecundate  the  same  eggs.  Thus,  with  these  fish 
there  is  a  sort  of  school  where  the  experienced  teach  the 
newcomers  the  procedure  of  fecundation.  This  mixture 
of  eggs  and  semen  from  fish  of  all  ages  should  be  very 
favourable  to  the  maintenance  of  a  specific  type,  if  the 
instability  of  milieu  did  not  bring  about  the  encounter 
of  elements  belonging  to  different  neighbouring  varieties: 
103 


THE  NATURAL 

despite  the  good  will  of  naturalists,  salmon  and  trout 
form  practically  only  one  family,  and  nothing  is  more 
difficult,  for  example,  than  to  determine  the  specie  of  a 
young  salmon,  or  to  state  the  difference  between  a  salmon 
and  a  sea  trout. 

The  loves  of  fish  (and  also  of  echinoderms,  star-fish, 
sea-anemones,  etc.)  thus  reduce  themselves,  in  the  main, 
to  those  of  ovule  and  spermatozoide.  The  essential. 
But  such  simplification  is  rather  shocking  to  the  sensi- 
bility of  a  superior  vertebrate,  or  to  an  insect  accus- 
tomed to  the  amorous  parade,  to  multiple  and  prolonged 
contacts,  to  the  presence  and  complexity  of  the  opposite 
sex.  This  fashion  of  love  is,  admittedly,  not  unknown 
to  men,  but  they  seem  to  be  led  to  it  rather  by  necessity 
than  by  taste,  by  morals  rather  than  by  the  search  for 
the  maximum  pleasure.  Genital  satisfactions  obtained 
apart  from  contact,  apart  from  being  necessarily  infecund, 
save  in  scabrous  scientific  experiments,  often  cause  a  ner- 
vous and  muscular  depression  greater  even  than  excess 
committed  in  common.  But  this  result  is  not  so  evident 
that  one  can  convert  it  into  a  moral  principle,  and 
the  fact  remains  that  onanism,  carefully  considered,  is 
one  among  nature's  gestures.  A  different  conclusion 
would  be  more  agreeable;  but  millions  of  creatures  would 
protest,  from  all  the  oceans,  and  from  beneath  the  reeds 
of  all  rivers.  One  might  go  further,  and  insinuate  that 
this  method  which  appears  to  us  monstrous,  or,  since  it 
is  a  matter  of  fish,  singular,  is  perhaps  superior  to  the 
laborious  method  of  cavalage,  so  ugly,  in  general,  and 
so  inconvenient.  But  there  is  not  in  terrestrial  nature, 
any  more  than  in  conceivable  nature  a  high  and  low,  a 
104 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

wrong  side  and  a  right  side;  there  is  neither  a  good  nor 
evil  manner,  a  right  nor  a  wrong,  but  there  are  states  of 
life  which  fulfill  their  purpose,  since  they  exist  and  since 
existence  is  their  aim.  Doubtless  the  discord  between 
the  will  and  the  organs  is  constant  in  all  stages  of  life, 
and  much  accentuated  in  man  where  the  wishes  are  multi- 
plex, but  where  the  nervous  system  remains,  in  short,  the 
master,  and  governs  even  to  the  danger  of  its  life.  It 
is  not  the  chance  of  circumstances  and  of  milieu  that  has 
swelled  the  spermoduct  of  certain  fish  into  papilla, 
and  then  into  penis,  or  formed  a  sheath  for  this  penis 
at  the  expense  of  the  caudal  fin;  it  is  the  will  force  of 
cerebral  ganglia.  The  evolution  of  the  nervous  system 
is  always  in  advance  of  that  of  the  organs,  this  is  a 
cause  of  incoherence,  and  at  the  same  time,  of  progress 
and  change.  The  day  when  the  brain  has  no  more 
orders  to  give,  or  when  the  organs  have  exhausted  their 
faculties  of  obedience,  the  specie  is  fixed;  if  fixed  in  a 
state  of  incoherence  it  moves  toward  certain  extinction, 
as  the  monotremes.  Many  species  seem  to  have  been 
destroyed  in  full  evolution  by  the  contradictory  exi- 
gencies of  a  tyrannous  and  capricious  nervous  system. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  male  cephalopode  fecundate 
the  female.  How  will  he  do  it,  having  no  organic  sperm- 
vector?  He  will  make  one.  One  thought  for  a  long 
time  that  the  female  argonauts  were  preyed  on  by  a 
parasite.  This  mysterious  beast  is  nothing  but  the 
instrument  of  fecundation.  The  male  has  a  pouch  where 
sperm  accumulates;  in  this  pouch  are  made  up  little 
bags  called  spermatophores,  the  animalcule  move  to- 
ward the  third  arm  of  the  argonaut  (nautilus),  and  this 
105 


THE  NATURAL 

arm  enlarges  in  spatula,  equips  itself  with  a  scourge, 
loses  its  suckers,  and  then  when  heavy  with  life  as  a 
ripe  grape,  it  falls  off,  moves  toward  the  female,  comes 
alongside  her  belly,  lodges  in  the  palleal  cavity  and 
oozes  out  its  seed  into  the  organs  where  this  will  encoun- 
ter the  ovules.  The  male  organ,  here,  appears  as  a  tem- 
porary individual,  a  third  being  between  father  and 
mother,  a  messenger  which  carries  the  male  genital  trea- 
sure to  the  female.  Neither  of  them  knows  the  other. 
The  male  is  wholly  ignorant  of  the  female  for  whom  he 
detaches  a  limb,  and  the  female  knows  nothing  of  her 
fecundator  save  the  sole  organ  which  fecundates.  A  little 
more  complicated  than  that  of  the  fish,  this  method  is 
probably  older,  and  seems  possible  only  for  aquatic  ani- 
mals. It  is  nevertheless  that  of  many  vegetables;  this 
swimming  arm  recalls  the  winged  grains  of  pollen  which 
travel  far  from  their  pistils.  Very  few  flowers  can  fecun- 
date directly;  nearly  all  have  need  of  an  intermediary, 
the  wind,  an  insect,  a  bird.  Nature  had  given  wings  to 
the  phallus,  ages  before  the  imagination  of  Pompeian 
painters;  she  had  thought  of  this,  not  for  the  pleasure 
of  bashful  women,  but  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  most 
hideous  beasts  that  people  the  ocean,  cuttlefish,  calama- 
ries,  octopL 


106 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 

IV.  Hermaphrodism. — Sexual  life  of  oysters. — Gastero- 
podes. — The  idea  of  reproduction  and  the  idea  of  plea- 
sure.— Mechanism  of  reciprocal  reproduction:  helices. 
— Spintrian  habits. — Reflections  on  hermaphrodism. 

FISH  are  the  only  vertebrates  among  whom  one  encoun- 
ters hermaphrodism,  either  accidental:  cyprins,  herrings, 
scombers;  or  regular,  sargue,  sparaillon,  seran.  The  myx- 
ines,  very  humble  fish  living  as  parasites,  are  alternative 
hermaphrodites,  like  oysters,  like  ascides;  the  genital 
gland  functions  first  as  testicle,  then  as  ovary.  The 
amphioxus,  the  bridge  between  invertebrates  and  verte- 
brates, is  not  hermaphrodite.  The  most  strongly  marked 
and  most  complicated  forms  of  hermaphrodism  are  found 
in  mollusks,  and  chiefly  in  gasteropodes.  The  alternate 
hermaphrodism  of  oysters  produces  effects  which  have 
been  observed  throughout  antiquity.  The  advice  to  ab- 
stain from  oysters  during  months  lacking  an  "r"  is  based 
on  a  fact,  and  that  fact  sexual.  From  September  to 
May,  they  are  males,  they  are  testicles,  they  elaborate 
sperm,  they  are  good;  from  June  to  August  the  ovaries 
bourgeon,  fill  with  eggs  which  turn  whitish  as  they  ripen, 
the  oysters  are  females,  they  are  bad;  fecundation  takes 
place  at  this  time,  the  spermatozoides,  born  in  the  pre- 
107 


THE  NATURAL 

ceding  period,  finally  perform  their  office.  Superstitions 
before  being  rejected  ought  to  be  minutely  observed  and 
analysed,  there  is  nearly  always  a  kernel  of  truth  in 
the  gross  envelope. 

In  the  hermaphrodism  of  echinoderms,  of  fish,  there 
is  never  auto-fecundation;  either  the  sexual  products 
meet  outside  the  animals,  which  have  neither  copulating 
organs,  nor  a  related  genital  life;  it  is  a  simple  growth 
of  germs;  or,  in  a  more  complex  phase  the  individuals 
have  exterior  male  organs,  and  female  organs,  but  they 
can  not  use  them  without  the  aid  of  another  individual 
acting  either  as  male,  or  as  female.  Here  a  new  dis- 
tinction is  imposed:  either  the  animal  will  be  successively 
male,  and  then  female;  or  it  will  be  both  at  once.  This 
union  of  the  two  sexes  seems  useless,  according  to  human 
logic,  when  the  two  genital  glands  ripen  at  different  sea- 
sons ;  one  understands  it  better  when  the  reciprocal  fecun- 
dation is  simultaneous,  since  this  doubles  the  number 
of  females  and  better  assures  the  conservation  of  the 
specie.  One  must  set  aside  the  idea  of  pleasure.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  we  can  judge  it  only  by  a  very  distant 
and  even  dubious  analogy  considering  the  difference  be- 
tween the  nervous  systems  of  man  and  mollusk,  one  must 
set  it  aside  as  useless.  Pleasure  is  a  result  not  an  aim. 
In  most  animal  species  coition  is  but  a  prelude  to  death, 
and  often  love  and  death  work  their  supreme  act  in  the 
same  instant.  Copulation  of  insects  is  suicide:  would  it 
be  reasonable  to  consider  it  as  produced  by  a  desire  to 
die?  One  must  dissociate  the  idea  of  pleasure  and  the 
idea  of  love,  if  one  wants  to  understand  anything  of  the 
tragic  movements  which  perpetually  beget  life  at  the 
108 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

expense  of  life  itself.  Pleasure  explains  nothing.  People 
might  simply  be  commanded  to  die  as  a  means  of  repro- 
duction, they  would  obey  with  the  same  eagerness:  this 
is  observed  even  in  humanity.  Dithyrambs  on  pleasure 
would  be  misplaced  apropos  of  the  mutual  ticklings  of 
two  snails  on  a  vine-leaf;  the  subject  is  rather  uncom- 
fortable. 

Note  then  two  helices,  both  bisexual,  fulfilling  exactly 
the  biblical  phrase:  "he  created  them  male  and  female"; 
their  genital  organs  are  very  well  developed;  the  penis 
and  oviduct  opening  into  a  vestibule,  which  in  the  act  of 
copulation  unbellies  itself  in  part,  so  that  the  penis  and 
vagina  come  in  touch  with  the  orifice;  mutual  intromission 
takes  place.  A  third  organ  comes  from  the  vestibule, 
without  analogy  in  superior  animals;  it  is  a  little  pocket 
containing  a  small  stiletto,  a  jewelled  dagger;  it  is  an  ex- 
citative organ,  the  needle  to  prick  up  desires.  These 
beasts  who  have  prepared  for  love  by  fasting,  by  long 
rubbings,  by  whole  days  of  close  pressure,  finally  come 
to  a  decision,  the  swords  come  out  of  their  scabbards, 
they  conscientiously  stab  each  other,  this  causes  the 
penis  to  rise  from  its  sheath;  the  double  mating  is 
accomplished. 

There  are  species  in  which  the  position  of  the  organs 
is  such  that  the  same  individual  can  not  be  at  the  same 
time  the  female  of  the  one  for  whom  he  acts  as  male,  but 
he  can  at  that  moment  serve  as  female  to  another  male, 
who  is  female  to  a  third,  and  so  on.  This  explains  the 
garlands  of  spintrian  gasteropodes  which  one  sees  realiz- 
ing innocently  and  according  to  the  ineluctable  wish  of 
nature,  carnal  imaginations  that  have  been  the  boast  of 
109 


THE  NATURAL 

erotic  humanity.  Facing  this  light  from  animal  habits, 
debauchery  loses  all  character  and  all  its  tang,  because 
it  loses  all  immorality.  Man,  who  unites  in  himself  the 
aptitudes  of  all  the  animals,  all  their  laborious  instincts, 
all  their  industries,  could  not  escape  the  heritage  of  their 
sexual  methods;  and  there  is  no  lewdness  which  has  not 
its  normal  type  in  nature,  somewhere. 

Before  leaving  this  repugnant  milieu,  one  may  still 
consider  the  leech.  Hermaphrodite,  they  also  practice 
reciprocal  fecundation,  but  the  position  of  their  organs 
compels  them  to  assume  a  peculiar  position:  the  prong 
emerges  from  a  pore  near  the  mouth ;  the  vagina  is  above 
the  anus.  The  copulation  of  these  wretched  animals 
forms,  therefore,  a  head-to-tail,  the  bocal  sucker  coin- 
ciding with  the  anal  sucker. 

Animals  having  both  sexes,  do  not  necessarily  show 
sexual  dimorphism.  But  neither  this  exact  likeness  of 
individuals,  nor  the  double  function  with  which  they  are 
charged,  contradicts  the  general  law  which  seems  to  wish 
that  an  individual  should  be  due  to  elements  coming  from 
two  different  individuals.  Autofecundation  is  exceptional, 
is  very  rare.  Whether  or  no  the  individual  possess  the 
two  genital  glands,  or  one  of  them  only,  it  needs  a  male, 
or  an  individual  acting  as  male,  and  a  female  or  an  indi- 
vidual acting  as  female,  to  perpetuate  life.  Alternative 
hermaphrodism  confirms  these  propositions,  be  it  that 
the  same  gland  transforms  itself  totally,  turn  by  turn, 
into  male  principle,  then  into  female  principle;  be  it 
divided  between  a  male  half  and  a  female  half,  these  two 
halves  ripen  simultaneously  or  successively.  When  there 
is  total  or  partial  alternation,  the  male  principle  is  ready 
no 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

first,  and  waits:  thus  the  aggressivity  of  the  male,  and 
the  passivity  of  the  female  are  visible  in  the  most  ob- 
scure manifestations  of  sexual  life:  the  fundamental 
psychology  of  an  ascide  does  not  differ  from  that  of 
an  insect,  or  from  that  of  a  mammal. 


in 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 

V.  Artificial  fecundation. — Disjunction  of  the  secreting 
apparatus  from  the  copulating  apparatus. — Spiders. — 
Discovery  of  their  copulative  method. — Brutality  of 
the  female. — Habits  of  the  epeire. — The  argyronete. — 
— The  tarantula. — Exceptions:  the  reapers. — Dragon- 
flies  (libellule). — Dragon-flies  (demoiselle)  virgins  and 
"jouvencelle." — Picture  of  their  love  affairs. 

THE  apparatus  for  secreting  sperm  and  that  for  copulat- 
ing are  sometimes  separated.  The  female  has  a  vagina 
normally  situated;  the  male  has  no  penis,  or  else  it  is 
situated  in  some  part  of  the  body  not  in  symmetry  with 
the  receiving  apparatus.  It  is  then  necessary  either  for 
the  male  to  make  an  artificial  penis,  as  one  has  seen  in  the 
cephalopodes,  and  as  in  the  spider,  or  for  him  to  engage 
in  complicated  manoeuvres  to  dominate  the  female,  and 
to  engineer  the  conjunction  of  the  two  apparatus,  as  does 
the  dragon-fly  (libellule). 

The  method  of  most  arachnids  strangely  resembles  the 
medical  practice  called  artificial  fecundation,  although 
it  is  hardly  more  so  than  normal  fecundation.  In  both 
it  is  a  question  of  putting  spermatozoides  in  the  way  of 
encountering  ovules:  it  matters  little  whether  phallus 
or  syringe  be  the  vehicle.  The  spider  uses  a  syringe. 

112 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

For  a  long  time  people  thought  that  the  whole  genital 
apparatus  was  situated  in  the  feelers  of  the  male,  but 
anatomy  could  find  nothing  there  to  resemble  it.  Savigny 
thought  that  the  introduction  of  the  feelers  into  the 
vulva  was  merely  an  excitative  manoeuvre,  and  that  the 
true  copulation  followed.  One  had  only  observed  half 
the  act,  the  second  phase.  The  first  consists  in  the  male's 
gathering  up  the  semence  in  his  own  belly  with  the 
feelers;  he  then  places  it  in  the  female  organ.  The 
maxillary  peripalpe  or  antenna,  thus  transformed  into  a 
penis,  contains  a  spiral  canal  which  the  male  fills  in 
placing  it  against  the  opening  of  his  spermatic  canals. 
One  sees  the  joint  of  one  of  the  knuckles  open,  letting 
appear  a  white  bourrelet  (pad  with  a  hole  in  the  mid- 
dle), this  is  bent,  and  plunged  into  the  vulva,  it  emerges 
and  the  insect  flees.  System  marvellously  adapted  to  the 
circumstances,  for  the  female  is  ferocious  and  quite  ready 
to  devour  her  suitor.  But  is  it  the  ferocity  of  the  female 
which  has  modified  the  fecundating  system,  or  is  it  the 
system,  so  lacking  in  tenderness,  which  has  led  the  recep- 
tress  to  find  only  an  enemy  in  the  aspirant  who  advances 
horn  to  the  fore?  Acts  which  produce  constant  and  useful 
results  always  seem  to  us  ordered  by  an  admirable  logic; 
one  need  only  give  oneself  up  to  a  certain  laziness  of 
mind,  to  be  led  quite  gently  to  call  them  providential 
and  to  fall  little  by  little  into  the  innocent  nets  of 
finalism. 

Doubtless — and  undeniable — there  is  a  general  finality, 

but  one  must  conceive  it  as  represented  entire  by  the 

present  state  of  nature.    This  will  not  be  a  conception 

of  order,  but  a  conception  of  fact,  and  in  any  case,  the 

"3 


THE  NATURAL 

means  used  to  attain  this  fact  should  in  no  way  be 
integrated  in  the  finality  itself.  None  of  the  procedures 
of  generation,  for  example,  bears  the  mark  of  necessity. 
It  is  not  the  ferocity  of  the  she-spider  which  demands  the 
sexual  habit;  the  female  mantis  is  still  more  savage, 
and  mantis'  method  is  cavalage.  It  does  not  seem  as 
if  anything  in  nature  were  ordered  in  view  of  some 
benefit;  causes  blindly  engender  causes;  some  maintain 
life,  others  force  it  to  progress,  others  destroy  it;  we 
qualify  them  differently,  according  to  the  dictates  of  our 
sensibility,  but  they  are  non-qualifiable;  they  are  move- 
ments, and  nothing  else.  The  pebble  ricochets  on  the 
water,  or  it  doesn't;  this  has  no  importance  in  itself, 
nothing  more  will  come  of  it  and  nothing  less.  It  is  an 
image  of  supreme  finality:  after  eight  or  ten  bounds, 
life,  like  the  pebble  thrown  by  a  child,  will  fall  into  the 
abyss,  and  with  it  all  the  good  and  evil,  all  facts,  all 
ideas,  and  all  things. 

The  idea  of  finality  leads  one  back  to  the  idea  of  fact, 
one  is  no  longer  tempted  to  attempt  an  explanation  of 
nature.  One  would  try  modestly  to  reconstruct  the  chain 
of  causes  and,  as  a  great  number  of  rings  will  always  be 
lacking,  and  as  the  absence  of  one  ring  alone  would  suf- 
fice to  unhook  the  whole  reasoning,  one  will  do  this  in  a 
piety  tempered  by  scepticism. 

The  epirus,  although  a  spider,  is  not  an  ill-conditioned 
beast;  she  is  episcopal,  she  carries  on  her  back  a  pretty 
white  cross  upside  down.  The  large  ones  are  the  fe- 
males; the  very  small  ones,  the  males.  Both  hook  their 
webs  upon  bushes,  on  shrubs,  live  without  knowing  each 
other  until  instinct  has  spoken.  A  day  comes  when  the 
114 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

male  is  restless;  the  gnats  fail  to  satisfy  him;  he  leaves, 
he  abandons  the  home  he  will  perhaps  not  see  again.  He 
is  not,  indeed,  without  misgivings,  and  fear  is  mingled 
with  his  desire,  for  the  mistress  he  seeks  is  an  ogress. 
Thus  he  prepares  a  way  of  retreat  in  case  of  combat; 
he  stretches  a  thread  from  the  female's  web  to  a  neigh- 
bouring branch,  road  of  entry,  gate  of  exit.  Often,  the 
instant  he  shows  himself  with  his  excited  air,  the  female 
epirus  leaps  on  him  and  eats  him  without  formality.  Is 
it  ferocity?  No,  stupidity.  She  also  is  awaiting  the  male, 
but  her  attention  is  distraught  between  the  coming  of  the 
caller  and  the  coming  of  prey.  The  web  has  shaken,  she 
leaps,  enlaces,  devours.  Perhaps  a  second  male  if  he 
attempt  the  pass,  will  be  gladly  received,  the  first  sacri- 
fice accomplished,  perhaps  this  mistake,  if  it  is  one,  will 
wake  all  the  amorous  attention  of  the  distracted  female? 
Ferocity,  stupidity;  there  is  another  explanation  which 
I  will  give  later,  apropos  the  mantis  and  the  green  grass- 
hopper: it  is  very  probable  that  the  sacrifice  of  the  male, 
or  of  a  male,  is  absolutely  necessary,  and  that  it  is  a 
sexual  rite.  The  little  male  approaches;  if  he  is  recog- 
nized, and  if  his  coming  coincides  with  the  genital  state 
of  the  female,  she  merely  behaves  like  all  the  rest  of  her 
peers,  and  even  though  she  be  the  larger  and  stronger, 
she  flees;  she  lets  herself,  full  of  coquetry,  slide  down  a 
thread;  the  male  imitates  the  play,  he  descends,  she 
mounts,  he  mounts,  the  acquaintance  is  made,  they  feel 
each  other,  they  pat  each  other,  the  male  fills  his  pump, 
the  mating  is  accomplished.  She  is  rapid,  the  male  stays 
on  guard,  ready  to  flee  at  the  least  movement  of  his 
adversary;  often  he  hasn't  time.  Scarcely  has  the  fecun- 
"5 


THE  NATURAL 

dation  been  finished  when  the  ogress  turns,  leaping,  and 
devours  the  suitor  on  the  very  spot  of  his  amours.  They 
say  that  she  does  not  always  wait  for  the  end  of  the 
operation,  and  that  preferring  a  good  meal  to  a  caress, 
she  interrupts  the  performance  with  a  slap  of  her  man- 
dibles. When  the  male  has  the  luck  to  escape  he  disap- 
pears like  a  flash,  goes  down  his  thread  like  greased 
lightning.  The  argyronete  uses  manoeuvres  analogous, 
but  even  more  curious.  It  is  a  water  spider,  which  goes 
under  water  in  an  ingenious  small  diving-bell,  a  future 
nest.  The  female  having  made  her  diving-bell,  the  male, 
not  daring  to  present  himself  thinks  out  the  wheeze  of 
making  another  bell  just  next  that  of  the  female.  Then 
at  a  propitious  moment  he  breaks  through  the  dividing 
wall  and  profits  by  the  surprise  of  his  sudden  entry. 
When  it  is  a  matter  of  not  being  eaten,  all  means  are  the 
right  ones. 

The  tarantula,  whose  habits  are  far  from  gentle,  is  not 
cruel  to  her  suitor.  This  monster  who  spins  no  web, 
spins  out  a  long  idyllic  courtship.  Extended  preludes, 
puerile  games,  delicate  caresses,  lambkins'  leapings.  Fin- 
ally the  female  surrenders  fully.  The  male  places  her  as 
he  wishes,  chooses  for  her  the  pose  most  pleasing  to  him, 
and  lies  obliquely  against  her,  gently  and  repeatedly  tak- 
ing the  sperm  from  his  abdomen  he  insinuates  each  of 
his  palpes,  one  after  the  other  in  the  swollen  vulva  of  the 
female.  The  break-away  is  sudden,  a  jump.  Still  more 
tender  are  the  courtships  of  the  leaping  spider;  they  ad- 
vance by  little  rushes,  stop,  watch,  leap  on  their  prey, 
insect  or  fly,  or  else  float  at  the  wind's  will  on  the  end  of 
a  long  hanging  web-thread.  When  male  and  female  meet, 
116 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

they  approach,  tap  each  other  with  forefeet  and  tentacles, 
separate,  reapproach,  recommence.  After  a  thousand 
salutations,  they  pose  head  to  head,  the  male  climbs  onto 
the  female,  stretches  out  until  he  reaches  the  abdomen. 
Then  he  lifts  the  extremity  of  it,  applies  his  palpe  to 
the  vulva,  and  retires.  The  same  act  is  begun  again 
several  times,  the  female  is  all  compliance  and  offers  no 
insult  to  her  companion.  There  are  certain  exceptions  to 
the  method  of  spiders;  the  reapers,  little  balls  mounted 
on  immense  legs,  act  by  cavalage.  The  males  have  a 
retractile  prong  fixed  by  two  ligaments  to  the  abdomen, 
the  female  an  oviduct  which  opens  in  vulva  and  spreads 
interiorly  into  a  vast  pouch,  the  resting  place  for  the 
eggs.  The  male  does  not  manage  this  female,  a  strong 
objector,  save  by  seizing  her  mandibles  with  his  pincers. 
Overcome  by  this  bite  she  submits;  the  coupling  lasts 
several  seconds. 

The  dragon-fly,  gracefully  called  "la  demoiselle,"  is 
one  of  the  finest  insects  in  the  world  and  certainly  the 
most  beautiful  of  those  which  fly  in  our  climate;  no  soft 
butterfly  colour  is  a  match  for  the  moving  shimmer  of  its 
supple  abdomen,  and  the  bright  head-colours  as  of  steely- 
blue  helmet.  Description?  It  is  difficult  to  find  two 
alike:  one  has  tawny  body  and  dove-grey  abdomen, 
spotted  with  yellow,  and  black  feet,  transparent  wings 
with  brown  borders  or  nerve-veinings,  or  these  in  black 
and  white;  another  has  a  yellow  head,  brown  eyes,  brown 
corselet  veined  in  green,  an  abdomen  touched  with  green 
and  yellow,  irised  wings;  another  called  "la  Vierge"  is 
gilded  green,  or  blue  with  green  shimmer,  and  spotless 
wings;  another  "la  Jouvencelle"  has  wings  thin  to  in- 
117 


THE  NATURAL 

risibility,  is  clothed  in  all  shades,  metallic  blue,  reddish- 
brown  green,  iris  violet,  tawny  chrysanthemum,  whatever 
her  fundamental  colour  she  encircles  her  elegant  barrel 
with  rings  of  black  velvet.  Naturalists  divide  these  insects 
into  libellules,  aeshnes,  agrions;  Fabricius  disputes  with 
Linnaeus;  peasants  and  children  (for  grown-ups  despise 
nature)  call  them  "demoiselles,"  "vierges"  and  "jouven- 
celles."  l  Some  fly  very  high,  in  the  trees,  others  along 
the  streams  and  over  pond  edges ;  others  over  ferns,  reeds, 
broom.  I  have  passed  days  in  the  sun  watching  them, 
waiting  to  see  their  courtships;  I  have  seen  them,  and 
know  that  Reaumur  has  not  deceived  us.  It  was  on  the 
surface  of  a  pond  among  the  border  flowers,  a  morning 
of  July,  a  flaming  morning.  The  "Vierge,"  corselet  of 
blue  green,  almost  invisible  wings,  fluttered  in  great  num- 
bers, slowly,  as  if  seriously;  the  hour  of  parade  had  ar- 
rived. And  everywhere  couples  formed,  rings  of  azure 
hung  from  the  grass  blades,  trembled  on  leaves  of  the 
water-lentil,  everywhere  green  arrows  and  blue  arrows 
played  at  flight,  and  wing-brushing,  at  joining.  The  big 
eyes  and  strong  head  of  the  libellule  give  an  air  of  gravity 
to  the  brilliancy  of  this  spectacle. 

The  ejaculatory  canal  opens  at  the  ninth  ring  of  the 
abdomen,  that  is  to  say,  at  the  point;  the  copulating 
apparatus  is  fixed  at  the  second  ring,  that  is,  near  the 
neck,  and  is  composed  of  a  penis,  of  hooks,  and  a  reser- 
voir: the  male  bending  his  long  belly  first  fills  the  reser- 
voir, then  empties  it  into  the  organs  of  the  female.  For 

*In  America  we  have,  so  far  as  I  know,  only  the  terms 
"dragon  fly"  and  "darning-needle,"  and  for  the  larger  ones  "devil's 
darning-needle." — E.  P. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

a  long  time  he  pursues  the  desired  mistress,  plays  with 
her,  finally  seizes  her  above  the  neck  with  the  terminal 
pincers  of  his  abdomen,  then,  turning  like  a  serpent,  he 
bends  forward  and  continues  to  fly,  a  beast  with  four 
pairs  of  wings.  In  this  attitude,  the  male,  sure  of  himself, 
with  the  air  of  the  hour's  indifferent  master,  chases 
midges,  visits  flowers  and  the  axilla  of  plants  where  the 
midges  sleep,  nabs  them  with  his  feet  and  puts  them  into 
his  mouth.  Finally  the  female  accedes,  bends  downward 
her  flexible  abdomen  and  makes  its  orifice  coincide  with 
the  male's  pectoral  penis:  the  two  beastlets  are  but  one 
splendid  ring  with  a  double  cup,  a  ring  trembling  with 
life  and  with  fire. 

No  gesture  of  love  can  be  conceived  more  charming 
than  that  of  the  female  slowly  bending  back  her  blue 
body,  going  half  way  toward  her  lover,  who  erect  on  his 
forefeet  bears,  with  taut  muscles,  the  full  weight  of  the 
movement.  It  is  so  pure,  so  immaterial,  one  would  say 
that  two  ideas  joined  in  the  limpidity  of  ineluctable 
thought. 


119 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  MECHANISM  OF  LOVE 

VI.  Cannibalism  in  sex. — Females  who  devour  the  male, 
those  who  devour  the  spermatophore. — Probable  use  of 
these  practices. — Fecundation  by  the  whole  male. — 
Loves  of  the  white  joreheaded  dectic. — The  green 
grasshopper. — The  Alpine  analote. — The  ephippigere. 
— Further  reflections  of  the  cannibalism  of  sex. — Loves 
of  the  praying  mantis. 

THE  spider  eats  her  male;  the  mantis  eats  her  male;  in 
locustians,  the  female  is  fecundated  by  a  spermatophore, 
an  enormous  genital  bunch-of-grapes.  She  gnaws  through 
this  envelope  of  spermatozoides  to  the  last  shred.  These 
two  facts  should  be  brought  together.  Whether  the 
female  swallow  the  male  entire,  or  only  the  product  of 
his  genital  glands,  it  is  probably  in  both  cases  a  comple- 
mentary act  of  fecundation.  There  are  possibly  in  the 
male,  assimilable  elements  necessary  for  the  development 
of  the  eggs,  almost  as  the  albumen  of  seeds,  little 
aborted  plants,  is  necessary  for  nourishing  the  vegetable 
embryo,  surviving  plantlet.  Plants,  according  to  recent 
study,  are  born  twins:  in  order  to  live  one  must  devour 
the  other.  Shifted  to  animal  life,  and  slightly  modified, 
this  mechanism  explains  what  one  terms,  from  sentimen- 
talism,  the  sexual  ferocity  of  the  she-mantis  and  the  she- 
120 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

spider.  Life  is  made  out  of  life.  Nothing  lives  save  at 
the  expense  of  life.  The  male  insect  nearly  always 
dies  immediately  after  the  mating;  in  locustians  he  is 
literally  emptied  by  the  genital  effort:  whether  the 
female  respect,  or  devour  him,  his  life  would  hardly  be 
longer,  or  shorter  thereby.  He  is  sacrificed;  why,  if  this 
is  for  the  good  of  the  species  should  he  not  be  eaten? 
Anyhow,  he  is  eaten.  It  is  his  destiny,  and  he  feels  it 
coming,  at  least  the  male  spider  does,  and  the  male  mantis 
allows  himself  to  be  gnawed  with  a  perfect  stoicism. 
The  spider  jibs,  the  other  submits.  It  is  really  a  matter 
of  ritual,  not  of  accident  or  of  crime.  One  might  try 
experiments.  One  might  prevent  the  female  dectic  from 
pecking  the  mistletoe  berry  which  the  male  has  dis- 
charged on  her;  one  might  watch  the  coupling  of  mantes 
and  isolate  them  immediately:  and  then  follow  all  the 
phases  from  laying  to  hatching.  If  the  spermatophagy 
of  the  dectic  is  useless,  if  the  murder  of  the  male  mantis 
is  useless,  it  will  annul  the  foregoing  reflections,  and 
others  will  rise. 

The  white-fronted  dectic  is,  like  all  the  locustians  (grass- 
hoppers), a  very  ancient  insect;  it  existed  in  the  coal 
era,  and  it  is  perhaps  this  antiquity  which  explains  its 
peculiar  fecundative  method.  As  the  cephalopodes,  his 
contemporaries,  he  has  recourse  to  the  spermatophore; 
yet  there  is  mating,  there  is  embracing;  there  are  even 
play  and  caresses.  Here  are  the  couple  face  to  face,  they 
caress  each  other  with  long  antennae  "fine  as  hair,"  as 
Fabre  says;  after  a  moment  they  separate.  The  next 
day,  new  encounter,  new  blandishments.  Another  day, 
and  Fabre  finds  the  male  knocked  down  by  the  female, 


THE  NATURAL 

who  overwhelms  him  with  her  embrace;  he  gnaws  her 
belly.  The  male  disentangles  himself  and  escapes,  but  a 
new  assault  masters  him,  he  lies  flat  on  his  back.  This 
time  the  female,  lifted  on  her  high  legs,  holds  him  belly 
to  belly;  she  bends  back  the  extremity  of  her  abdomen; 
the  victim  does  likewise;  there  is  junction,  and  soon  one 
sees  something  enormous  issue  from  the  convulsive  flanks 
of  the  male,  as  if  the  animal  were  pushing  out  its  entrails. 
"It  is,"  continues  the  best  observer  (Fabre,  Souvenirs 
VI),  "an  opaline  leather  bottle  about  the  size  and  colour 
of  a  mistletoe  berry,"  a  bottle  with  four  pockets  at  least, 
held  together  by  feeble  sutures.  The  female  receives  this 
leather  bottle,  or  spermatophore,  and  carries  it  off  glued 
to  her  belly.  Having  got  over  the  thunder-clap,  the  male 
gets  up,  makes  his  toilet;  the  female  browses  as  she  walks. 
"From  time  to  time  she  rises  on  her  stilts,  bends  into  a 
ring,  seizes  her  opaline  bundle  in  her  mandibles,  and 
chews  it  gently."  She  breaks  off  little  pieces,  chews  them 
carefully,  and  swallows  them.  Thus  while  the  fecun- 
dative  particles  are  extravasated  toward  the  eggs  which 
they  are  to  animate,  the  female  devours  the  spermatic 
pouch.  After  having  tasted  it  piece  by  piece  she  suddenly 
pulls  it  off,  kneads  it,  swallows  it  whole.  Not  a  scrap  is 
lost;  the  place  is  clear,  and  the  oviscapte  is  cleaned, 
washed,  polished.  The  male  has  begun  to  sing  again, 
during  this  meal,  but  it  is  not  a  love-song,  he  is  about  to 
die;  he  dies:  passing  near  him  at  this  moment,  the  female 
looks  at  him,  smells  him,  takes  a  bite  of  his  thigh. 

Fabre  was  unable  to  see  the  mating  of  the  green  grass- 
hopper, which  takes  place  at  night,  but  he  observed  the 
long  preludes;  he  has  seen  the  slow  play  of  soft  anten- 

122 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

nx.  The  result  of  the  coupling  is  the  same  as  with  all 
locustians;  the  female  chews  and  swallows  the  genital 
ampulla.  She  is  a  terrible  beast  of  prey  who  eats  alive 
a  huge  cicada,  who  fearlessly  sucks  the  entrails  of  a 
wriggling  cockchafer.  One  can't  say  whether  she  eats 
her  male,  dead  or  alive;  it  is  very  probable  for  he  is  quite 
timid.  Another  dectic,  the  Alpine  analote,  has  given 
Fabre  the  alarming  spectacle:  a  male  on  his  back,  a 
female  on  his  belly,  the  genital  organs  joining  end  to  end 
in  this  single  contact,  and  while  she  was  receiving  the 
fecundative  caress,  the  enigmatic  female,  with  the  fore 
part  of  her  body  raised,  was  gnawing  with  little  mouth- 
fuls,  another  male  held  in  her  claws,  impassive,  his  belly 
chewed  open.  The  male  analote  is  much  smaller  and 
weaker  than  the  female;  like  his  confrere  the  spider,  he 
flees  with  greatest  possible  speed  after  the  end  of  coition; 
he  is  very  often  nipped.  In  the  case  observed  by  Fabre, 
the  meal  was  doubtless  the  end  of  a  preceding  amour: 
these  locustians  have  the  habit,  rare  among  insects,  of 
receiving  several  suitors.  Truly  this  cannibal  Margue- 
rite de  Bourgogne  is  a  fine  type  of  beast,  and  gives  a 
fine  spectacle,  not  of  immorality,  an  empty  term,  but  of 
the  serenity  of  nature,  which  permits  all  things,  wills  all 
things,  and  for  whom  there  are  neither  vices  nor  virtues, 
but  only  movements  and  chemic  reactions. 

The  spermatophore  of  the  ephippiger  is  enormous, 
nearly  half  the  size  of  the  animal.  The  nuptial  feast  is 
finished  according  to  the  same  rite,  and  the  female,  having 
finished  the  leather-bottle  spermatophore,  adds  thereto 
the  poor  emptied  male.  She  does  not  even  wait  until  he 
is  dead;  she  chops  him  up,  as  he  is  dying,  limb  by  limb: 
123 


THE  NATURAL 

having  fecundated  her  with  all  his  blood,  he  must  feed  her 
with  all  his  flesh. 

This  male  flesh  is  doubtless  powerful  comforting  to  the 
mother  to  be.  Female  mammifers,  after  delivery,  devour 
the  placenta.  One  has  given  different  interpretations  to 
this  habitual  act.  Some  see  a  precaution  against  enemies: 
it  is  necessary  to  obliterate  traces  of  a  condition  which 
clearly  shows  that  one  is  feeble,  defenceless,  surrounded 
by  young,  a  tasty  prey  at  the  mercy  of  any  tooth;  others 
say  it  is  a  recuperation  of  energy.  This  latter  opinion 
seems  more  likely,  especially  if  one  consider  the  habits 
of  locustians.  The  spermatophore  is  indeed  the  preceding 
analogy  to  the  placenta.  On  the  other  hand,  fecundation, 
before  being  a  specific  act,  belongs  to  the  general  phe- 
nomena of  nutrition:  it  is  the  integration  of  one  force  in 
another  force,  and  nothing  more.  The  devouring  of  the 
male,  partial  or  complete,  represents,  then,  only  the  most 
primitive  form  of  the  union  of  cellules,  this  junction  of 
two  unities  in  one,  which  precedes  the  segmentation,  feeds 
it,  makes  it  possible  during  a  limited  time,  after  which 
a  new  conjunction  is  necessary.  If  the  actual  acts  are 
only  a  survival,  if  they  have  lasted  after  their  utility  has 
disappeared,  it  is  another  question,  and  one  which  I  leave 
again  to  experimenters.  It  will  be  enough  for  me  if  I 
have  gained  acceptance  of  the  general  principle  that  ani- 
mals' acts,  whatever  they  may  be,  can  not  be  understood 
unless  one  strip  them  of  the  sentimental  qualifications 
beneath  which  ignorant  humanity  has  covered  them,  cor- 
rupting them  with  providential  finalism. 

While  fully  recognizing  the  immense  social  value  of 
prejudices,  analysis  should  be  permitted  to  excoriate 
124 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

them  and  to  grind  them.  Nothing  appears  more  clear 
than  maternal  love,  and  nothing  is  more  widespread 
throughout  all  nature:  yet  nothing  gives  a  falser  inter- 
pretation of  the  acts  which  these  two  words  pretend  to 
explain.  One  makes  a  virtue  of  it,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
Christian  sense,  a  voluntary  act;  one  seems  to  think  that 
it  depends  on  the  mother  to  love  or  not  to  love  her 
children,  and  one  considers  culpable  those  who  relax  or 
forget  their  motherly  cares.  Like  generation,  motherly 
love  is  a  commandment;  it  is  the  second  condition  of  the 
perpetuity  of  life.  Mothers  sometimes  are  without  it; 
some  mothers  also  are  sterile:  the  will  intervenes  neither 
in  one  case  nor  in  the  other.  As  the  rest  of  nature,  as 
ourselves,  animals  live  submitted  to  necessity,  they  do 
what  they  ought  to  do,  so  far  as  their  organs  permit  them. 
The  mantis  who  eats  her  husband  is  an  excellent  egg-layer 
who  prepares,  passionately,  the  future  of  her  progeny. 

After  Fabre's  observations  of  couples  of  these  insects 
caged,  the  female  much  stronger  than  the  male  mantes, 
are  the  predatory  ones,  who  do  combat  for  love.  The 
combats  are  deadly,  the  vanquished  female  is  eaten  at 
once.  The  male  is  bashful.  At  the  moment  of  desire  he 
limits  himself  to  posing,  to  making  sheep's  eyes,  which 
the  female  seems  to  consider  with  indifference  or  disdain. 
Tired  of  parade,  he  finally  decides,  and  with  spread  wings, 
leaps  trembling  upon  the  back  of  the  ogress.  The  mating 
lasts  five  or  six  hours;  when  the  knot  is  loosed,  the  suitor 
is,  regularly,  eaten.  The  terrible  female  is  polyandrous. 
Other  insects  refuse  the  male  when  their  ovaries  have 
been  fecundated,  the  mantis  accepts  two,  three,  four,  up 
to  seven;  and  Bluebeard,  eats  them  regularly  after  the 
125 


THE  NATURAL 

act  is  accomplished.  Fabre  has  seen  better.  The  mantis 
is  almost  the  only  insect  with  a  neck;  the  head  does  not 
join  the  thorax  immediately,  the  neck  is  long  and  flexible, 
bending  in  all  directions.  Thus,  while  the  male  is  enlac- 
ing and  fecundating  her,  the  female  will  turn  her  head 
back  and  calmly  eat  her  companion  in  pleasure.  Here  is 
one  headless,  another  is  gone  up  to  the  corsage,  and  his 
remains  still  clutch  the  female  who  is  thus  devouring  him 
at  both  ends,  getting  from  her  spouse  simultaneously  the 
pleasures  ac  mensa  ac  thoro,  both  bed  and  board  from 
her  husband.  The  double  pleasure  only  ends  when  the 
cannibal  reaches  the  belly:  the  male  then  falls  in  shreds 
and  the  female  finishes  him  on  the  ground.  Poiret  has 
witnessed  a  scene  perhaps  even  more  extraordinary.  A 
male  leaps  on  a  female  and  is  going  to  couple.  The 
female  turns  her  head,  stares  at  the  intruder,  and  decapi- 
tates him  with  a  blow  of  her  jaw-foot,  a  marvellous 
toothed-scythe.  Without  disconcertion  the  male,  wedges 
up,  spreads  himself,  makes  love  as  if  nothing  abnormal 
had  happened.  The  mating  took  place,  and  the  female 
had  the  patience  to  wait  for  the  end  of  the  operation 
before  finishing  her  wedding  breakfast. 

The  headless  nuptials  are  explained  by  the  fact  that  the 
insects'  brain  does  not  seem  to  have  unique  control  of  its 
movements;  these  animals  can  live  without  the  cervical 
ganglion.  A  headless  grasshopper  will  still  lift  his 
bruised  foot  to  his  mouth,  after  three  hours,  with  the 
movement  familiar  to  him  in  his  complete  condition. 

The  small  mantis,  or  colourless  mantis,  is  almost  as 
fierce  as  her  great  sister,  the  religious  mantis;  but  the 
empuse,  a  kindred  specie,  seems  peaceful. 
126 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  SEXUAL  PARADE 

Universality  of  the  caress,  of  amorous  preludes. — Their 
role  in  fecundation. — Sexual  games  of  birds. — How 
cantharides  caress. — Males'  combats. — Pretended  com- 
bats of  birds. — Dance  of  the  tetras. — Gardener  bird. — 
His  country  house. — His  taste  for  flowers. — Reflections 
on  the  origin  of  his  art. — Combats  of  crickets. — Parade 
of  butterflies. — Sexual  sense  of  orientation. — The  great- 
peacock  moth. — Animals'  submission  to  orders  of  Na- 
ture.— Transmutation  of  physical  values. — Rutting  cal- 
endar. 

ONE  has  convinced  oneself  in  the  preceding  chapters  that 
the  games  of  love,  preludes,  caresses,  combats  are  in  no 
way  peculiar  to  the  human  race.  On  nearly  all  rungs  of 
the  animal  ladder,  or  rather  on  all  the  branches  of  the 
animal  fan,  the  male  is  the  same,  the  female  is  the  same. 
It  is  always  the  equation  given  in  the  intimate  mechanism 
of  union  of  animalcule  and  ovule:  a  fortress  toward  which 
amans  volat  currit  ac  Icetatur.  The  whole  passage  of  the 
Imitatio  (L.  Ill,  chap,  iv,  4)  is  a  marvellous  psychologi- 
cal presentation  of  love  in  nature,  of  sexual  attraction  as 
it  is  felt  throughout  the  whole  series  of  creatures.  The 
besieger  must  enter  the  fortress;  he  uses  violence,  some- 
times gentle  violence;  more  often  trickery,  the  caress. 
127 


THE  NATURAL 

Caress,  charming  movements,  grace,  tenderness,  we  do 
all  these  things  of  necessity,  not  because  we  are  men,  but 
because  we  are  animals.  Their  aim  is  to  liven  the  sen- 
sibilities, to  dispose  the  organism  to  accomplish  with  joy 
its  supreme  function.  They  are,  very  probably,  agreeable 
to  the  individual  and  they  are  perceived  as  pleasure  only 
because  they  are  useful  to  the  species.  This  character 
of  necessity  is  naturally  more  apparent  in  animals  than  in 
man.  In  animals  the  caress  has  fixed  forms,  of  which 
the  kiss,  however,  gives  a  good  example;  the  caress  is  an 
integral  part  of  the  cavalage.  A  prelude,  but  a  prelude 
which  can  not  be  omitted  without  compromising  the  essen- 
tial part  of  the  drama.  It  happens,  however,  that  man, 
able  to  overexcite  himself  cerebrally,  may  abridge,  or  even 
neglect  the  prologue  to  coition:  this  is  also  noted  in  cer- 
tain domestic  mammifers,  the  bull  and  stallion.  The  mere 
sight  or  smell  of  the  other  sex  is  doubtless  enough  to 
produce  a  state  permitting  immediate  union.  This  is 
not  the  case  with  dogs,  who  are  still  more  domestic, 
the  two  sexes  give  themselves  up  to  play,  to  explorations, 
they  demand  each  other's  consent,  courtship  continues, 
sometimes  the  male,  despite  his  condition,  retreats;  more 
often  the  female  lowers  the  draw-bridge  of  her  tail,  and 
closes  the  fortress.  One  knows  the  provocations  of  birds. 
M.  Mantegazza  has  agreeably  recounted  the  sexual  play 
of  two  vultures,  the  female  shut  in  the  carcass  of  an  al- 
most devoured  horse,  interrupted  her  pecking  of  carrion, 
to  groan  deeply,  turning  her  head  to  look  up  into  the 
air.  A  male  vulture  soared  above  the  larder,  replying  to 
the  groans  of  the  female.  However,  when  the  overexcited 
male  descended  toward  the  supposedly  willing  vulturess, 
128 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

she  retreated  into  the  carcass,  and  after  a  short  dispute 
she  made  him  understand  that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe, 
and  sent  him  off.  After  which  the  groans  recommenced; 
the  female  seemed  annoyed;  she  mounted  the  cage  of 
bone,  swelling  her  wings,  lifting  her  tail,  cooing.  The 
union  finally  took  place  in  a  great  commotion  of  ruffled 
feathers  and  shaken  bones. 

The  same  author  has  precisely  noted  the  complicated 
preludes  indulged  in  by  two  sparrows.  I  give  the  resume, 
graphically:  A  troop  of  sparrows  on  the  roof  in  the 
morning;  calm,  they  make  their  toilet.  Arrives  a  large 
male  who  emits  a  violent  cry;  one  of  the  females  replies 
at  once,  not  by  a  cry  but  by  an  act :  she  leaves  the  group. 
The  male  joins  her,  she  flies  to  a  neighbouring  roof ;  there 
follows  a  long  chatter  beak  to  beak.  New  flight;  the 
male  rests  in  the  sun,  then  rejoins  the  minx.  The  as- 
saults begin,  the  male  is  repulsed.  The  female  moves 
off,  in  little  hops.  The  edge  of  the  roof  stops  the  flight, 
she  profits  by  this  excuse  and  surrenders. 

But  it  is  the  prodigious  insect  whom  one  must  inter- 
rogate. One  knows  the  cantharides,  these  beautiful  cole- 
optera  on  whom  pharmacy  has  inflicted  so  wicked  a  repu- 
tation. The  female  gnaws  her  oak  leaf,  the  male  arrives, 
mounts  her  back,  enlaces  her  with  his  hind  feet.  Then 
with  his  stretched  abdomen  he  flagellates  the  female  alter- 
nately to  right  and  left  with  frantic  speed.  At  the  same 
time  he  massages  her,  lashes  her  neck  furiously  with  his 
front  feet,  all  his  body  shakes  and  vibrates.  The  female 
remains  passive,  awaiting  the  calm.  It  comes.  Without 
letting  go  the  male  stretches  out  his  forelegs  in  a  cross, 
unbends  a  little,  wagging  from  head  and  corselet.  The 
129 


THE  NATURAL 

female  starts  eating  again.  The  calm  is  short;  the  male's 
follies  recommence.  Then  there  is  another  manoeuvre, 
with  the  fold  of  his  legs  and  tarses,  he  seizes  the  female's 
antennae,  forces  her  to  lift  her  head,  at  the  same  time 
redoubling  the  lashing  of  her  flanks.  New  pose;  new 
start  of  the  flagellation:  finally  the  female  opens.  The 
coupling  lasts  a  day  and  a  night,  after  which  the  male 
falls,  but  remains  knotted  to  the  female  who  drags  him 
from  leaf  to  leaf,  the  penis  attached  to  her  organs.  Some- 
times he  also  takes  a  mouthful  here  and  there;  when  he 
drops  off  it  is  to  die.  The  female  lays  the  eggs  and  dies 
in  her  turn.  The  cerocome,  an  insect  kin  to  the  cantha- 
ride,  has  analogous  habits,  but  the  female  is  even  colder, 
and  the  male  is  obliged  to  tap  more  than  one  before  get- 
ting an  answer.  In  vain  he  beats  the  sides  of  his  chosen 
companion  with  his  paws,  she  remains  insensible,  inert. 
This  action,  moreover,  has  the  full  appearance  of  having 
passed  to  a  state  of  mania  in  the  male  muscles,  so  much 
so  that,  in  default  of  females,  males  mount  and  pummel 
each  other.  As  soon  as  a  male  is  charged  by  another  male 
he  takes  the  female  attitude  and  remains  quiet;  one  sees 
pyramids  of  three  or  four  males;  in  which  case  the  top 
one  is  the  only  one  wildly  waving  his  feet;  the  others 
remain  immobile,  as  if  their  position  of  mounts  trans- 
formed them  into  passive  animals:  probably  because  their 
muscles  are  pinned  down.  (For  these  two  observations 
see  Fabre,  "Souvenirs"  vol.  II.  Cerocomes,  mylabres  et 
zonitis.) 

It  is  rare  for  a  female  to  assist  the  male  in  his  work, 
but  there  remains  the  obstacle  of  the  other  males.    Con- 
trary to  what  one  might  think,  there  is  no  relation  be- 
130 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

tween  the  male's  social  character  and  his  amorous  char- 
acter. Ferocious  animals  show  themselves  at  the  moment 
of  love-making  much  more  placid  than  gentle  or  even 
timid  animals.  The  scary  rabbit  is  an  impetuous,  tyran- 
nous and  jealous  lover.  If  the  female  does  not  accede  to 
his  first  desire,  he  rages.  She  is,  moreover,  very  lascivious 
and  gestation  in  no  way  interrupts  her  amours.  The 
hare,  who  does  not  pass  for  audacious,  is  an  ardent  and 
heady  lover;  he  fights  furiously  with  his  peers  for  the 
possession  of  a  female.  They  are  animals  very  well 
equipped  for  love,  the  penis  greatly  developed,  clitoris 
almost  as  large.  The  males  make  real  voyages,  run  for 
entire  nights  in  search  of  the  doe-hare  who  is  sedentary: 
like  the  doe-rabbit,  she  never  refuses,  even  when  preg- 
nant. 

Martins,  polecats,  sables,  rats  fight  violently  during 
the  rutting  season.  Rats  accompany  their  fights  with 
sharp  cries.  Stags  and  wildboars,  and  a  great  number 
of  other  species  fight  to  the  death  for  the  possession  of 
females;  a  practice  not  unknown  to  humanity.  Even 
heavy  tortoises  feel  exasperation  from  love;  the  defeated 
male  is  tilted  onto  his  back. 

Finer,  destined  perhaps  for  a  superior  and  charming 
civilization,  the  birds  like  combat;  sometimes  the  duel 
is  serious,  as  in  gallinaceae,  cock-fights,  often  it  is  a  cour- 
tesy, a  mimicry.  The  female  of  the  rock-cock  of  Brazil 
is  tawny  and  without  beauty,  the  male  is  yellow-orange, 
with  crest  bordered  in  deep  red,  the  long  wing  feathers 
and  tail  feathers  are  red-brown.  One  sees  the  females 
ranged  in  a  circle  as  a  crowd  about  jugglers,  the  males 
are  strutting,  cutting  capers,  moving  their  colour-shot 


THE  NATURAL 

feathers,  getting  themselves  admired  and  desired.  From 
time  to  time  a  female  admits  that  she  is  moved,  a  couple 
is  formed.  But  the  tetras,  heather-cocks  of  North 
America,  have  still  more  curious  customs.  Their  fights 
have  become  exactly  what  they  have  with  us,  that  is, 
dances.  It  is  no  longer  the  tourney,  it  is  the  tour-de- 
valse.  What  completes  the  proof  that  these  parades  are 
a  survival,  a  transformation,  is  that  the  males,  being 
amused  by  them,  perform  them  not  only  before  but  after 
coupling.  They  even  practice  them  for  diversion  while 
the  females  are  sitting  on  the  eggs,  absorbed  in  maternal 
duty.  Travellers  thus  describe  the  tetras'  dance  (Milton 
and  Cheaddle,  "Atlantic  to  Pacific,"  p.  171  of  the  French 
translation) :  "They  gather,  twenty  or  thirty  in  a  chosen 
place,  and  begin  to  dance  like  mad.  Opening  their 
wings,  they  draw  together  their  feet,  like  men  doing  the 
danse  du  sac.  Then  they  advance  toward  each  other,  do 
a  waltz  turn,  pass  to  a  second  partner,  and  so  on.  This 
contre-danse  of  prairie  chickens  is  very  amusing.  They 
become  so  absorbed  in  it  that  one  can  approach  quite 
near." 

Birds  of  Australia  and  New  Guinea x  make  love  with  a 
charming  ceremony.  To  attract  his  mistress  the  male 
makes  a  veritable  country-house,  or,  if  he  is  less  skilful, 
a  rustic  bower  of  greenery.  He  plants  rushes,  green 
sprigs,  for  he  is  small,  about  the  size  of  a  blackbird; 
he  bends  them  into  a  vault,  often  a  metre  long.  He 
strews  the  floor  with  leaves,  flowers,  red  fruits,  white 

1  One  has  the  unpronounceable  name,  savants  designating  it  by 
the  jumble  of  letters:  Ptilinorhynches.  The  other  is  called  the 

132 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

bits  of  bone,  bright  pebbles,  bits  of  metal,  jewels  stolen 
in  the  neighbourhood.  They  say  that  when  Australians 
miss  a  ring  or  a  pair  of  scissors,  they  search  these  green 
tents.  Our  magpie  shows  a  certain  taste  for  bright 
objects:  people  tell  tales  about  him.  The  "gardener- 
bird"  of  New  Guinea  is  still  more  ingenious,  to  such  a 
degree  that  his  work  is  mistaken  for  human  work  and 
people  are  deceived  thereby.  With  his  beak  and  claws 
he  manages  as  well  and  better  than  peasants,  often  show- 
ing a  decorative  taste  which  they  lack.  People  search  for 
the  "origin  of  art":  there  you  have  it,  in  the  sexual  game 
of  a  bird.  Our  aesthetic  manifestations  are  but  a  develop- 
ment of  this  same  instinct  to  please  which,  in  one  specie 
over-excites  the  male,  in  another  moves  the  female.  If 
there  is  a  surplus  it  will  be  spent  aimlessly,  for  pure 
pleasure:  that  is  human  art;  its  origin  is  that  of  the  art 
of  birds  and  insects. 

The  Grande  Encyclopedic  has  given  a  picture  of  the 
gardener-bird's  pleasure  house.  He  is  called  in  most 
scholarly  parlance  the  Amblyornis  inornata,  because  he 
is  lacking  in  personal  beauty.  One  would  take  his  house 
for  the  work  of  some  intelligent  delicate  pygmy.  We 
find  the  description  of  it,  after  the  Italian  traveller  M.  O. 
Beccari x  "In  crossing  a  magnificent  forest  M.  Beccari 
found  himself  suddenly  in  the  presence  of  a  little  conical 
cabin,  in  front  of  which  was  a  lawn  strewn  with  flowers; 
he  at  once  recognized  the  sort  of  hut  which  M.  Bruijn's 
huntsmen  had  described  to  him  as  the  work  of  a  dark 

'The  title  of  his  study  is  curious  "Les  Cabanes  et  les  jardins 
de  1'Amblyornis."  (Annales  du  Musee  d'histoire  naturelle  de 
Genes,  1876). 

133 


THE  NATURAL 

bird  somewhat  larger  than  a  blackbird.  He  made  a  very 
exact  sketch  of  it,  and  verifying  the  native's  tales  by  his 
own  observation,  he  found  out  how  the  bird  makes  this 
building  which  is  not  so  much  a  nest  as  a  pleasure 
house.  The  amblyornis  chooses  a  little  clearing  with 
unbroken  lawn  and  a  small  tree  in  the  middle.  Around 
this  tree  or  bush  which  serves  as  axis,  the  bird  places  a 
little  moss,  then  he  plants  slantwise  the  branches  of  a 
plant  which  will  continue  to  grow  for  some  time;  jux- 
taposition of  branches  form  the  inclined  walls  of  the 
hut.  On  one  side  they  are  left  open  to  make  a  doorway, 
before  which  is  the  garden  whose  elements  are  gathered 
with  difficulty,  tuft  by  tuft,  at  some  distance.  After 
having  carefully  cleaned  the  lawn,  the  amblyornis  sows 
it  with  flowers  and  fruits  which  he  collects  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  which  he  renews  from  time  to  time."  This 
primitive  gardener  belongs  to  the  bird  of  paradise  fam- 
ily, remarkable  for  the  beauty  of  their  plumage.  It 
seems  that  not  being  able  to  dress  himself,  he  has  ex- 
teriorized his  instinct.  According  to  travellers,  these 
cabins  are  true  houses  of  rendezvous,  the  country-boxes 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  "follies"  of  the  XVIIIth. 
The  gallant  bird  ornaments  it  with  everything  that  might 
please  the  invited  female;  if  she  is  satisfied,  it  is  the 
abode  of  love,  after  having  been  that  of  declarations. 
I  do  not  know  whether  these  oddities  have  been  given 
the  importance  which  they  should  have  been,  in  the  his- 
tory of  birds  and  of  humanity.  The  scholar,  the  only 
person  knowing  such  details,  usually  fails  utterly  to  un- 
derstand them.  One  savant  whom  I  read,  thinks  of  the 
thieving  magpie,  and  adds,  these  traits  which  are  common 
134 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

to  them  ally  them  closely  to  birds  of  paradise  and  cor- 
vida.  Doubtless,  but  that  is  not  very  important.  The 
grave  fact  is  the  gathering  of  the  first  flower.  The  useful 
fact  explains  animality;  the  useless  fact  explains  man. 
Now,  it  is  of  capital  importance  to  show  that  the  useless 
fact  is  not  peculiar  to  man  alone. 

Crickets  also  have  courting  fights,  but  perhaps  for 
a  different  reason:  the  feebleness  of  their  offensive  weap- 
ons, and  the  solidity  of  their  armour.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  winner  and  loser.  The  loser  decamps,  the  con- 
queror sings.  Then  he  shines  himself,  stamps,  seems 
nervous.  Fabre  says  that  emotion  often  renders  him 
mute;  his  elytra  (wing-shells)  shake  without  giving  a 
sound.  The  female  cricket,  witness  of  the  duel,  runs  to 
hide  under  a  leaf  as  soon  as  it  is  over.  "She  draws  back 
the  curtain  a  little,  and  looks  out,  and  wants  to  be  seen." 
After  this  play,  she  shows  herself  completely,  the  cricket 
rushes  forward,  makes  a  half-turn,  rears  up  and  slides 
under  her  belly.  The  work  finished,  he  gets  away  as 
fast  as  possible,  for  we  are  before  an  enigmatic  orthop- 
ter,  the  female  is  quite  ready  to  eat  him.  It  is  the 
male's  song  which  attracts  the  female  cricket.  When 
she  hears  it,  she  listens,  takes  her  bearings,  obeys  the 
call.  It  is  the  same  with  cicadas,  even  though  the  two 
sexes  usually  live  side  by  side.  By  imitating  the  sound 
of  the  male,  one  can  deceive  the  females  and  make  them 
come  to  one. 

Sometimes  sight,  sometimes  smell  guides  the  male. 
Many  hymenoptera,  furnished  with  a  powerful  visual 
organ  keep  watch  for  the  females,  spying  the  vicinity. 
Thus  also  many  day  butterflies.  When  the  male  riotices 


THE  NATURAL 

a  female,  he  pursues,  but  in  order  to  get  in  front  of  her, 
to  be  seen,  and  he  seems  to  tempt  her  with  slow  waving 
of  his  wings.  This  display  lasts  often  quite  a  long  time. 
Finally  their  antennae  touch,  their  wings  stroke  each  other, 
and  they  fly  off  in  company.  The  coupling  often  takes 
place  in  the  air;  thus  among  pierides.  In  certain  species, 
bombyx  for  example,  the  females  are  heavy  and  even 
aptera,  the  male  who  is  in  contrast  lively,  fecundates 
several,  going  from  one  to  the  other,  which  is  doubtless 
what  gives  butterflies  their  reputation  for  inconstancy. 
They  live  too  short  a  time  to  deserve  it:  many  born  in  the 
morning  do  not  see  the  next  day's  sun.  One  might 
rather  make  them  a  symbol  for  pure  thought.  There  are 
some  who  do  not  eat,  and  among  those  who  do  not  eat 
there  are  some  whom  nature  has  vowed  to  virginity. 
Hermaphrodites  of  a  singular  sort,  male  on  the  right  side, 
female  on  the  left,  they  seem  to  be  two  sexual  halves 
welded  together  along  the  medial  line.  The  organs  whose 
centre  is  cut  by  this  line  are  but  demi-organs  good  for 
nothing  save  the  entertainment  of  observers.  Hybrid 
butterflies,  produced  by  crossing  of  two  species,  are  not 
very  rare;  they  also  are  incapable  of  reproduction. 

The  coupling  of  day  butterflies  lasts  only  a  few  minutes, 
among  night  butterflies  it  is  often  prolonged  for  a  day  and 
a  night,  as  in  sphinx,  phalenes,  noctuelles.  If  it  is  a  re- 
ward, it  is  due  to  their  long  courageous  voyages  in  quest 
of  the  female  whom  they  have  divined.  The  great-pea- 
cock moth  covers  several  leagues  of  country  in  the  at- 
tempt to  satisfy  his  desire.  Blanchard  tells  of  a  natur- 
alist who  having  caught  a  female  bombyx  and  put  her 
in  bis  pocket,  returned  home  escorted  by  a  cloud  of  over 
136 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

two  hundred  males.  In  spring,  in  a  place  where  the  great- 
peacock  is  so  rare  that  one  with  difficulty  finds  one  or 
two  per  year,  the  presence  of  a  caged  female  will  draw 
a  hundred  males,  as  Fabre  has  shown  by  experiment. 
These  feverish  males  are  endowed  with  very  brief  ardour. 
Whether  or  no  they  have  touched  a  female,  they  live 
but  two  or  three  days.  Enormous  insects,  larger  than 
a  humming-bird,  they  do  not  eat;  their  bocal  pieces  are 
merely  an  ornament,  a  decor:  they  are  born  to  reproduce 
and  to  die.  The  males  seem  infinitely  more  numerous 
than  the  females,  and  it  is  probable  that  not  more  than 
one  in  an  hundred  can  accomplish  his  destiny.  He  who 
misses  the  pursued  female,  who  arrives  too  late,  is  lost: 
his  life  is  so  short  that  it  would  be  very  difficult  for 
him  to  discover  a  second.  It  is  true  that  in  normal 
circumstances  the  female  should  stop  emitting  her  sexual 
odour  as  soon  as  she  has  been  ridden;  the  males  are  thus 
attracted  by  the  same  female  through  a  proportionately 
shorter  time  and  there  is  this  much  less  chance  of  their 
searches  being  unfruitful.  Is  it  their  sense  of  smell  alone 
that  guides  them? 

At  8  a.  m.  at  Fabre's  place  in  Serignan,  one  saw  the 
cocoon  of  a  lesser-peacock  moth  open;  a  female  emerged 
and  was  immediately  imprisoned  in  a  wire  cage.  At  noon 
a  male  arrived,  the  first  that  Fabre,  who  had  lived  there 
all  his  life,  had  ever  seen.  The  wind  was  blowing  from 
the  north.  The  male  came  from  the  north,  that  is  to 
say,  against  the  scent.  At  two  o'clock  ten  had  arrived. 
Having  come  as  far  as  the  house  without  hesitation,  they 
were  troubled,  got  the  wrong  window,  wandered  from 
room  to  room,  never  went  directly  toward  the  female. 
137 


THE  NATURAL 

One  would  say  that  at  this  point  they  should  have  used 
another  sense,  perhaps  sight,  despite  their  being  cre- 
puscular creatures,  or  that  the  cage  bothered  them.  Per- 
haps also  it  is  the  custom  for  the  female  to  come  and 
play  before  them?  It  is,  in  any  case,  evident  that  sense 
of  smell  plays  an  important  role;  the  mystery  would  not 
be  less  great  if  one  supposed  the  bringing  into  play  of 
a  special  sense,  that  of  sexual  orientation.  Fabre  has 
obtained  equal  success  with  the  female  of  a  very  rare  but- 
terfly, the  oak  bombyx,  or  banded  minime:  in  one  morn- 
ing sixty  males  arrived,  turning  about  the  prisoner.  One 
has  observed  analogous  if  not  identical  things  in  certain 
serpents,  in  mammifera:  everyone  has  seen  dogs  in  the 
country,  drawn  by  a  female  in  heat,  coming  from  a  con- 
siderable distance,  nearly  a  league,  without  one's  being 
able  to  say  how  their  organism  had  got  the  news. 

Explanations  are  vain  in  these  matters.  They  divert 
the  curiosity  without  satisfying  the  reason.  What  one 
sees  clearly  is  a  necessity:  the  act  must  be  accomplished, 
to  this  end,  all  obstacles,  whatever  they  are,  will  be 
overcome.  Neither  distance,  nor  the  difficulty  of  the 
voyage,  nor  the  danger  of  the  approach  can  drive  back 
the  instinct.  In  man,  who  has  sometimes  the  power  to 
escape  the  sexual  commandments,  disobedience  may  have 
happy  results.  Chastity,  as  a  transmuter,  may  change 
unused  sexual  energy  into  intellectual  or  social  energy;  in 
animals  this  transmutation  of  physical  values  is  impos- 
sible. The  compass  needle  remains  in  one  immutable 
position,  obedience  is  unescapable.  That  is  why  there  is 
so  deep  a  rumble  in  nature  when  the  spring  orders  are 
posted.  Vegetable  flowers  are  not  the  only  ones  to  open: 
138 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

sexes  of  flesh  also  flower.  Birds,  fish  take  on  new  and 
more  vivid  colours.  There  are  songs,  plays,  pilgrimages. 
Salmon  who  live  quietly  at  the  river-mouths,  must  gather, 
depart,  climb  the  streams,  pass  weirs,  scrabble  against 
rocks  which  form  the  dams  and  cataracts,  wear  themselves 
out  leaping  as  arrows  against  all  human  and  natural 
obstacles.  Males  and  females  arrive  worn  out  at  the 
end  of  their  journey,  the  jray&re  of  fine  sand  where  they 
are  to  lay  their  eggs,  and  the  males  heroically  to  spend 
the  milt  distilled  from  their  blood. 

Spring  is  not  the  only  rutting  season.  Love's  calendar 
covers  the  year.  In  winter,  wolves  and  foxes;  in  spring, 
the  birds  and  fish;  in  summer,  insects  and  many  mam- 
mals; in  autumn  the  deer.  Winter  is  often  the  season 
chosen  by  polar  animals;  the  sable  couples  in  January; 
the  ermine  in  March;  the  glutton,  at  the  beginning  and 
end  of  winter.  Domestic  animals  have  often  several  sea- 
sons; for  the  dog,  cat  and  house-birds,  spring  and 
autumn.  One  finds  young  otters  at  any  time.  Most 
insects  die  after  mating;  but  not  all  hemiptera,  nor  the 
queen  bee,  nor  certain  coleoptera,  nor  certain  flies.  The 
stag  and  the  stallion  empty  themselves,  but  not  the  ram, 
nor  the  bull  nor  the  he-goat.  The  duration  of  pregnancy 
in  placentaires  seems  to  have  some  relation  to  the  size 
of  the  animal;  mare,  eleven  to  twelve  months;  ass,  twelve 
months  and  a  half;  cow,  doe,  nine  months;  sheep,  goat, 
wolf,  vixen,  five  months;  sow,  four  months;  bitch,  two 
months;  cat,  six  weeks;  rabbit,  one  month. 

There  are  oddities:  fecundated  in  August,  the  roe  is  not 
delivered  until  seven  and  a  half  months  later,  the  embryo 
remaining  a  long  time  stationary,  and  waiting  for  the 
139 


THE  NATURAL 

spring  to  start  again.  In  a  she-bat  ovulation  does  not 
take  place  until  the  end  of  winter,  although  she  has 
received  the  male  in  the  autumn:  females  caught  during 
hibernation  have  the  vagina  swollen  with  inert  sperm 
which  does  not  act  until  the  spring  waking. 


140 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER   XVI 

POLYGAMY 

Rarity  of  monogamy. — Taste  for  change  in  animals. — 
Roles  of  monogamy  and  polygamy  in  the  stability  or 
instability  of  specific  types. — Strife  of  the  couple 
against  polygamy. — Couples  among  insects. — Among 
fish,  batrachians,  saurians. — Monogamy  of  pigeons,  of 
nightingales. — Monogamy  in  carnivora,  in  rodents. — 
Habits  of  the  rabbit. — The  ichneumon. — Unknown 
causes  of  polygamy. — Rarity  and  superabundance  of 
males. — Polygamy  in  insects. — In  fish. — In  gallinacea, 
in  web-footed  birds. — In  herbivora. — The  antelope's 
harem. — Human  polygamy. — How  it  tempers  the 
couple  among  civilized  races. 

THERE  are  no  monogamous  animals  save  those  which 
love  only  once  during  their  lifetime.  Exceptions  to  this 
rule  have  not  sufficient  constancy  to  be  erected  into  a 
counter-rule.  There  are  monogamists  in  fact,  there  are 
none  of  necessity,  from  the  time  an  animal  lives  long 
enough  to  commit  the  reproductive  act  several  times. 
Free  female  mammals  nearly  always  flee  the  male  who 
has  once  served  them,  they  need  a  new  one.  A  bitch 
does  not  receive  last  season's  dog  save  in  direst  extremity. 
This  appears  to  me  to  be  the  struggle  of  the  specie  against 
variety.  The  couple  is  the  maker  of  varieties.  Polygamy 
141 


THE  NATURAL 

drags  them  back  to  the  general  type  of  the  specie.  In- 
dividuals of  a  specie  frankly  polygamous  should  present 
a  very  great  similarity;  if  the  species  incline  toward  a 
certain  monogamy,  the  dissemblances  become  more 
numerous.  It  is  not  an  illusion  which  makes  us  recognize 
in  human  races  almost  monogamous,  a  lesser  uniformity 
of  type  than  in  polygamous  societies  or  those  given  over 
to  promiscuity,  or  among  animal  species.  The  example 
of  the  dog  seems  the  worst  that  one  could  have  chosen. 
It  isn't,  it  is  the  best,  considering  that  in  receiving  suc- 
cessively individuals  of  different  variety,  the  bitch  tends 
to  produce  individuals  not  of  a  specialized  breed,  but  on 
the  contrary  of  a  type  where  several  breeds  will  be 
mixed,  individuals  which  in  crossing  and  recrossing  in 
their  turn,  will  end,  if  the  dogs  live  in  a  free  state,  in 
forming  one  single  specie.  Sexual  liberty  tends  to  estab- 
lish uniformity  of  type;  monogamy  strives  against  this 
tendency  and  maintains  diversity.1  Another  consequence 
of  this  manner  of  seeing  is  that  one  must  consider  mo- 
nogamy as  favourable  to  intellectual  development,  intelli- 
gence being  a  differentiation  which  accomplishes  itself 
more  often,  in  proportion  as  there  are  individuals  and 
groups  who  differ  physically.  Physical  uniformity  en- 
genders uniformity  of  sensibility,  thence  of  intelligence; 
this  does  not  need  to  be  explained;  now  intelligences 
count,  and  mark  only  their  differences;  uniform,  they  are 
as  if  they  were  not;  impotent  to  hook  themselves  one  onto 
the  other,  to  react  against  each  other,  lacking  asper- 

1  That  is  to  say  in  the  eye  of  some  imaginary  divinity  who 
might  be  supposed  to  regard  humanity,  or  even  the  slower 
mammals  from  a  timeless  or  say  five  century  altitude. — Trans- 
lator's note. 

142 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

ities,  lacking  contrary  currents.  This  is  the  flock,  in 
which  each  member  makes  the  same  gesture  of  flight,  of 
biting,  or  of  roaring. 

Neither  the  conditions  of  absolute  monogamy,  nor 
those  of  absolute  promiscuity  seem  to  be  found  at  pres- 
ent in  humanity,  nor  among  animals;  but  one  sees  the 
couple,  in  several  animal  and  human  species,  either  in 
state  of  tendency,  or  in  state  of  habit.  More  often,  espe- 
cially among  insects,  the  father,  even  if  he  survives  it  a 
little  while,  remains  indifferent,  to  the  consequences  of 
the  genital  act.  At  other  times,  the  fights  between  males 
so  reduce  their  number  that  a  sole  male  remains  the 
master  and  servant  of  a  great  number  of  females.  So 
one  must  distinguish  between  true,  and  successive  poly- 
gamy; between  the  monogamy  of  one  season,  and  that 
of  an  entire  lifetime;  and  finally  one  must  set  apart  those 
animals  who  make  love  only  once,  or  during  one  season 
which  is  followed  by  death.  These  different  varieties 
and  nuances  demand  methodic  classification.  It  would 
be  a  long  work,  and  would  perhaps  not  attain  true  exacti- 
tude, for  in  animals,  as  in  man,  one  must  count  with 
caprice  in  sexual  matters:  when  a  faithful  dove  is  tired 
of  her  lover,  she  takes  flight,  and  soon  forms  a  new 
couple  with  an  adulterous  male.  The  couple  is  natural, 
but  the  permanent  couple  is  not.  Man  has  never  bent 
to  it,  save  with  difficulty,  even  though  it  be  one  of  the 
principal  conditions  of  his  superiority. 

The  breasts  of  the  male  do  not  seem  to  prove  the 

primordiality  of  the  couple  in  mammals.    Although  there 

are  veridic  examples  of  the  male's  having  given  suck, 

it  is  difficult  to  consider  the  male  udder  as  destined  for 

143 


THE  NATURAL 

a  real  role,  or  for  an  emergency  milking.1  This  replace- 
ment has  been  too  rarely  observed  for  one  to  use  it  as  a 
basis  of  argument.  Embryology  gives  a  good  explana- 
tion of  the  existence  of  this  useless  organ.  An  useless 
instrument  is,  moreover,  quite  as  frequent  in  nature  as 
the  absence  of  a  useful  instrument.  Perfect  concordance 
of  organ  and  act  is  rare.  In  the  case  of  insects  who  live 
but  for  one  love-season,  sometimes  for  two  real  seasons 
if  they  can  benumb  themselves  for  the  winter,  polygamy 
is  nearly  always  the  consequence  of  the  rarity  of  males, 
or  the  superabundance  of  females.  Space  is  too  vast, 
their  food  too  abundant  for  there  to  be  truly  deadly 
combats  between  males.  Moreover,  their  love  accom- 
plished, the  minuscule  folk  ask  only  to  die,  the  couple 
is  formed  only  for  the  actual  time  of  fecundation,  the 
two  animals  at  once  resume  their  liberty,  that  is  for 
the  female  to  deliver  her  eggs,  and  for  the  male  to 
languish,  and  sometimes  to  cast  a  final  song  to  the 
winds.  There  are  exceptions  to  this  rule,  but  if  one 
looks  upon  the  exceptions  with  the  same  gaze  as  on  the 
rule,  one  would  see  in  nature  only  what  one  sees  on 
the  surface  of  a  river,  vague  movements  and  passing 
shadows.  To  conceive  some  reality,  one  must  con- 
ceive a  rule,  first,  as  an  instrument  of  vision  and  of 
measure.  With  most  insects  the  male  does  nothing 
but  live;  he  deposits  his  seed  in  the  female  receptacle, 
flies  on,  vanishes.  He  does  not  share  any  of  the  labours 
preparatory  to  laying.  Alone  the  female  sphex  engages 
1  One  believes  nevertheless  that  the  male  bat  suckles  one  of 
the  two  young  that  the  couple  regularly  produces.  But  these 
animals  are  so  odd  and  so  heteroclite  that  this  example,  if  it  is 
authentic,  would  not  be  a  decisive  argument. 
144 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

in  her  terrible  and  clever  strife  with  the  cricket,  whom 
she  paralyzes  with  three  stabs  of  her  dagger  in  his 
three  moto-nervous  centres;  alone  she  hollows  the  oblique 
burrow  at  the  bottom  of  which  live  her  larvae;  alone 
she  adorns  it,  fills  it  with  provisions,  closes  it.  Alone 
the  female  cerceris  heaps  up  in  the  deep  gallery  the 
stunned  weevils  and  burn-cows,  fruit  of  her  excava- 
tions, larder  for  her  progeny.  Alone  the  she-osmie,  she- 
wasp,  she-philanthe — one  would  have  to  cite  nearly  all 
the  hymenoptera.  One  understands  better,  when  the 
insect  deposits  her  eggs  by  chance,  without  prefatory 
manoeuvres,  or  by  special  instruments,  that  the  male 
co-operation  is  lacking;  only  the  female  cicada  can  sink 
her  clever  burrow  in  the  olive  bark. 

There  are  however  couples  among  insects.  Among 
coleoptera  there  are  the  "purse-maker,"  the  necrophore. 
Stercorian  geotrupes,  lunar  copris,  onitis  bison,  sisyphus, 
work  soberly  side  by  side  preparing  the  larder  for  their 
coming  families.  In  these  cases,  the  male  seems  master, 
he  directs  the  manoeuvres  in  the  complicated  operations 
of  the  necrophores.  A  couple  get  busy  about  a  corpse, 
say  of  a  field  mouse;  nearly  always  one  or  two  isolated 
males  join  them,  the  troop  is  organized,  one  sees  the 
chief  engineer  explore  the  territory  and  give  orders. 
The  female  awaits  them,  motionless,  ready  to  obey,  to 
follow  the  movement.  As  soon  as  there  is  a  couple  the 
male  necrophore  commands.  The  male  assists  the  female 
during  the  work  of  arranging  the  cell  and  the  laying. 
Most  purse-makers,  sisyphus  or  copris  make  and  trans- 
port together  the  pill  which  serves  as  food  for  the  larvae; 
their  couple  is  just  like  that  of  birds.  One  might  be- 
145 


THE  NATURAL 

lieve  that  in  this  case  monogamy  is  necessitated  by  the 
nature  of  the  work;  not  at  all:  the  male  in  other  quite 
closely  related  species,  sacred  scarab,  for  example,  leaves 
the  female  alone  to  build  the  excremental  ball  in  which 
she  encloses  her  eggs. 

Coming  up  to  vertebrata  one  finds  also  certain  examples 
of  a  sort  of  monogamy:  when  the  male  fish  serves  as 
hatcher  for  his  own  eggs,  either  carrying  them  in  a 
special  pouch,  or  heroicly  sheltering  them  in  his  mouth. 
This  is  rare,  since,  usually,  the  two  sexes  of  fish  do  not 
approach  each  other,  do  not  even  know  each  other. 
Batrachians,  on  the  contrary,  are  monogamous;  the  fe- 
male does  not  lay  save  under  male  pressure,  and  it  is  so 
slow  an  operation,  preceded  by  such  long  manoeuvres  that 
the  whole  season  is  filled  with  it.  The  male  of  the  com- 
mon land  toad  rolls  the  long  chaplet  of  eggs  about  his  feet 
as  soon  as  it  is  divided,  and  goes  in  the  evening  to 
place  it  in  the  neighbouring  pool.  Nearly  all  saurians 
seem  also  to  be  monogamous.  The  he  and  she  lizard 
form  a  couple  said  to  last  several  years.  Their  amours 
are  ardent,  they  clasp  each  other  closely  belly  to  belly. 

Birds  are  generally  considered  monogamous,  save 
gallinaceae  and  web- footed  birds;  but  exceptions  appear 
so  numerous  that  one  would  have  to  name  the  species 
one  by  one.  The  fidelity  of  pigeons  is  legendary,  and  is 
perhaps  only  a  legend.  The  male  pigeon  certainly  has 
tendencies  to  infidelity  and  even  to  polygamy.  He  de- 
ceives his  companion ;  he  goes  so  far  as  to  inflict  upon  her 
the  shame  of  having  a  concubine  under  the  conjugal 
roof!  And  these  two  spouses,  he  tyrannizes  over  them, 
he  enslaves  them  by  beating.  The  female,  it  is  true, 
146 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

is  not  always  of  an  easy  disposition.  She  has  her 
caprices.  Sometimes,  refusing  her  mate,  she  deserts 
him  and  gives  herself  to  the  first  comer.  One  will  not 
find  here  any  of  the  zoological  anecdotes  on  the  industry 
of  birds,  their  union  in  devotion  to  the  specie.  The 
habits  of  these  new-comers  in  the  world,  are  very  un- 
stable; yet  among  certain  gallinaceae,  monogamous  for 
exception,  like  the  partridge,  the  males  seem  pulled  by 
contrary  desires,  they  undergo  the  couple  rather  than 
choose  it,  and  their  share  in  the  rearing  of  young  is 
often  very  slight.  One  has  seen  the  male  red  partridge, 
after  mating,  abandon  his  female  and  rejoin  a  troop  of 
male  vagabonds.  The  nightingales,  perfect  pair,  sit  on 
the  eggs  turn  by  turn.  The  male,  when  the  female 
comes  to  relieve  him,  remains  near  by  and  sings  until 
she  is  comfortably  settled  on  the  eggs.  Still  more 
devoted  is  the  male  talegalle,  a  sort  of  Australian  tur- 
key. He  makes  the  nest,  an  enormous  heap  of  dead 
leaves;  when  the  female  has  laid,  he  watches  the  eggs, 
comes  from  time  to  time  to  uncover  them  for  exposure 
to  the  sun.  He  takes  his  share  of  watching  the  young, 
sheltering  them  under  leaves  until  they  are  able  to  fly. 
Of  mammals,  the  carnivora  and  rodents  often  prac- 
tice a  certain,  at  least  temporary,  monogamy.  Foxes 
live  in  couples,  and  educate  the  young  foxes.  One  finds 
their  real  habits  in  the  old  "Roman  du  Renart":  Renard 
the  fox  goes  vagabond,  hunting  for  prey  and  windfalls, 
while  Madame  Hermaline,  his  wife,  waits  at  home,  in 
her  bower  at  Maupertuis.  The  vixen  teaches  her  chil- 
dren the  art  of  killing  and  dividing;  their  apprentice- 
ship is  made  on  the  still  living  game  which  the  male 
147 


THE  NATURAL 

purveyor  has  brought  to  the  house.  The  rabbit  is  very- 
rough  in  love;  the  hamster,  another  rodent,  often  be- 
comes carnivorous  during  the  rutting  season;  they  say 
that  he  is  quite  ready  to  eat  his  young,  and  that  the 
female,  fearing  his  ferocity,  leaves  him  before  delivery. 
These  aberrations  are  exaggerated  in  captivity,  and  af- 
fect even  the  female.  One  knows  that  the  she-rabbit 
sometimes  eats  her  young;  this  happens  especially  when 
one  has  the  imprudence  to  touch  or  even  to  look  too 
closely  at  the  young  rabbits.  This  is  enough  to  bring 
on  a  violent  disturbance  of  maternal  sentiment.  The 
same  dementia  has  been  observed  in  a  vixen  who  had 
kittened  in  a  cage;  one  day  someone  passed,  and  looked 
steadily  at  the  young  foxes,  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later 
they  were  throttled. 

Various  explanations  are  given  for  this  practice  among 
she-rabbits,  the  simplest  being  that  they  are  driven 
by  thirst  to  kill  the  young  in  order  to  drink  the  blood. 
This  is  rather  Dantescan  for  she-rabbits.  They  say 
also,  regarding  both  wild  and  tame  rabbits,  that  the 
female  when  surprised  kills  the  young  because  she  has 
not  industry  like  the  doe-hare,  cat,  or  bitch,  to  transport 
them  to  some  other  place  or  to  save  at  least  one,  by 
the  scruff  of  its  neck.  The  third  explanation  is  that, 
devouring  the  afterbirth,  like  nearly  all  mammals,  and 
this  from  physiological  motive,  the  doe-rabbit  acquires 
a  taste,  and  continues  the  meal,  absorbing  the  young  as 
well.  Without  rejecting  any  of  these  explanations  one 
may  present  several  others.  First,  it  is  not  only  the 
females  who  eat  the  young,  the  males  are  equally  given 
to  it.  Being  very  lascivious,  the  male  rabbit  tries  to 
148 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

get  rid  of  his  young,  in  order  to  stop  suckling,  and 
have  his  female  again.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a 
regular  fact,  that  as  soon  as  she  has  retaken  the  habit 
of  having  the  male,  the  mother  rabbit,  even  if  she  is  still 
giving  suck,  at  once  ceases  to  recognize  her  offspring, 
her  brief  ideas  already  turned  toward  her  new,  coming 
family.  Different  causes  may  engender  identical  acts, 
and  different  lines  of  reasoning  bring  the  same  con- 
clusions. There  is  reasoning  in  this  case  of  the  rabbit; 
there  is  no  reasoning  save  in  case  01  initial  error,  when 
there  is  trouble  in  the  intellect.  This  trouble  and  the 
final  massacre  is  all  that  one  can  state  definitely: 
the  reasoning  escapes  our  analysis. 

Is  the  rabbit  really  monogamous?  Perhaps,  with  a 
monogamy  for  the  season,  or  from  necessity.  The 
male,  in  any  case  pays  no  attention  to  the  young,  unless 
it  be  to  throttle  them;  thus  the  female  as  soon  as  she  is 
gravid,  takes  refuge  in  an  isolated  burrow.  Their  coup- 
ling, which  occurs  especially  toward  evening,  is  re- 
peated as  often  as  five  or  six  times  an  hour,  the  female 
crouching  in  a  particular  manner;  the  break  away  is 
very  sudden,  the  male  throwing  himself  back,  sidewise 
and  uttering  a  short  cry.  What  really  makes  one  doubt 
the  monogamy  of  the  rabbit  is  that  one  male  is  enough 
for  eight  or  ten  females,  that  he  is  a  great  runner, 
that  the  males  have  murderous  fights  among  themselves. 
Doubtless  one  must  take  each  specie  separately.  Buf- 
fon  pretends  that  in  a  warren  the  oldest  buck  rabbits 
have  authority  over  the  young.  An  observer  of  rabbit 
habits,  M.  Mariot-Didieux,  admits  this  trait  of  superior 
149 


THE  NATURAL 

sociability  in  angoras,  which  is  just  the  specie  Buffon 
had  studied. 

Buck  rabbits  have  still  other  aberrations,  hunters  pre- 
tend that  they  pursue  doe-hares,  tire  them  and  wear 
them  out  by  their  lustiness;  it  is  certain  that  these 
couplings  give  no  result. 

The  Egyptian  ichneumon  lives  in  families.  It  seems 
that  it  is  very  interesting  to  see  them  on  a  hunting 
expedition,  first  the  male,  then  the  female,  then  the 
young  in  Indian  file.  Female  and  young  do  not  take 
their  eyes  off  father,  and  imitate  all  his  gestures  with 
care:  one  might  think  the  train  was  a  large  serpent  mov- 
ing in  reeds.  The  wolf  who  like  the  fox  lives  in  pairs, 
helps  his  female  and  feeds  her,  but  he  does  not  know 
his  young  and  will  eat  them  if  they  come  to  hand.  Cer- 
tain great  apes,  gibbon  and  orang  are  temporarily 
monogamous. 

Polygamy  would  be  explained  by  the  rarity  of  males; 
which  is  not  the  case  with  most  mammals,  among  whom 
the  males  are  almost  constantly  more  numerous.  Buffon 
was  the  first  to  note  this  predominance,  neither  has  he 
nor  has  anyone  since,  given  a  satisfactory  explanation. 
People  have  said  that  in  man,  at  least,  the  elder  parent 
gives  the  sex  to  the  offspring,  and  the  more  surely  as 
the  difference  in  age  is  greater,  but,  by  this  reckoning 
one  would  have  almost  nothing  but  males.  People  have 
also  said  that  the  younger  the  woman,  the  more  likely 
the  child  to  be  male.  The  early  marriages  of  the  past 
are  supposed  to  have  yielded  more  males  than  the  late 
marriages  of  the  present.  None  of  these  statements  is 
serious.  What  remains  past  doubt  is  that  European 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

humanity,  to  consider  only  that,  gives  an  excess  of 
males.  The  general  average  is  about  105,  with  ex- 
tremes of  1 01  in  Russia,  and  113  in  Greece;  the  French 
average  is  the  same  as  the  general  average.  One  has 
not  been  able  to  make  out,  in  these  variations,  either  in- 
fluence of  race,  or  of  climate,  or  of  taxes,  or  of  national- 
ity, or  anything  else  in  particular.  There  are  more 
male  humans,  more  male  sheep:  it  is  a  fact,  which  being 
regular,  will  be  difficult  to  explain. 

We  find  here  superabundance,  there  penury  of  males, 
but  neither  does  the  abundance  determine  the  customs, 
nor  is  it  likely  the  lack  of  males  would  do  so.  There  are 
so  few  males  among  gnats  that  Fabre  was  the  first  to  rec- 
ognize them,  the  proportion  about  one  male  to  ten  females. 
This  in  no  way  produces  polygamy,  for  the  male  dies  the 
instant  after  coupling.  Nine  out  of  ten  gnat  females  die 
virgin,  and  even  without  having  seen  a  male,  without 
knowing  that  males  exist:  perhaps  celibacy  augments 
their  ferocity,  for  it  is  the  female  gnat  and  she  alone  who 
sucks  our  gore.  One  supposes  also  that  female  spiders 
outnumber  the  males  ten  or  twenty  to  one:  perhaps  the 
buck  who  has  escaped  the  jaws  of  one  mistress  has  the 
courage  to  risk  his  life  yet  again?  It  is  possible,  the  male 
spider  who  survives  his  amours  may  live  on  for  several 
years.  Polygamy  seems  to  exist,  and  in  its  most  refined 
form,  with  one  sort  of  spider,  the  ctenize,  whose  males  are 
peculiarly  rare.  The  female  digs  a  nest  in  the  earth, 
into  which  the  male  descends;  he  lives  there  some  time, 
then  he  leaves,  comes  back:  there  are  several  houses 
between  which  he  divides  his  time  equitably. 

The  polygamy  of  a  curious  little  fish,  the  stickleback,  is 


THE  NATURAL 

of  the  same  sort,  although  more  naive.  The  male  builds 
a  grass  nest,  then  goes  in  search  of  a  female,  brings  her 
back  to  the  nest,  invites  her  to  lay;  scarcely  has  his  first 
companion  departed  when  he  brings  in  another.  He  only 
stops  when  there  is  a  satisfactory  treasure  of  eggs,  then 
he  fecundates  them  in  the  usual  manner.  Thence  on  he 
guards  the  nest  against  malefactors,  and  watches  the 
hatching.  In  the  odd  reversal  of  roles,  the  young  recog- 
nize their  father;  their  mother  may  be  the  fish  passing 
between  them,  or  the  one  gliding  off  like  a  shadow,  or 
the  one  chewing  a  grass  blade.  When  the  stickleback 
world  becomes  reasonable,  that  is  to  say  absurd,  it  will 
perhaps  give  itself  up  to  the  "recherche  de  la  maternite"? 
Their  philosophers  will  demand  "Why  should  the  father 
alone  be  charged  with  the  education  of  his  offspring?" 
Up  to  the  present  one  knows  nothing  except  that  he  edu- 
cates them  with  joy  and  affection.  Among  sticklebacks 
and  among  men  there  is  no  answer  to  such  question  save 
the  answer  given  by  facts.  One  might  as  well  ask  why 
humanity  is  not  hermaphrodite,  like  the  snails,  who 
strictly  divide  the  pleasures  and  burdens  of  love,  for  all 
snails  commit  the  male  act,  and  all  lay.  Why  has  the 
female  ovaries,  and  the  male  testicles:  and  this  flower 
pistils,  and  this  one  stamens?  One  ends  in  baby-talk. 
The  wish  to  correct  nature  is  unnecessary.  It  is  hard 
enough  to  understand  her,  even  a  little,  as  she  is.  When 
she  wishes  to  establish  the  absolute  responsibility  of  the 
father,  she  establishes  the  strict  couple,  and  especially, 
absolute  polygamy.  The  pigeon  is  no  longer  certain  of 
being  the  father  of  his  young;  the  cock  can  not  doubt 
it,  he  being  the  sole  male  among  all  his  hens.  But  nature 
152 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

has  no  secondary  intentions,  she  keeps  watch  that,  tem- 
porary or  durable,  fugitive  or  permanent  the  couples  are 
fecund;  that  is  all. 

Gallinaceae  and  web-feet  present  certain  birds  best 
known  and  most  useful  to  us.  They  are  nearly  all  poly- 
gamous. The  cock  needs  about  a  dozen  hens,  he  can  do 
with  a  much  larger  number,  but  in  that  case  his  ardour 
wears  itself  out.  The  duck,  very  licentious,  is  accused 
of  sodomy.  Not  only  is  he  polygamous,  but  anything 
will  serve  him.  He  might  better  be  a  natural  example  of 
promiscuity.  A  gander  is  good  for  ten  or  twelve  geese, 
the  cock-pheasant  for  eight  or  ten  hens.  The  lyrure 
tetras  needs  many  more,  he  leads  a  sultan's  harem  be- 
hind him.  At  dawn,  in  the  season  of  amours,  the  male 
starts  whistling  with  a  noise  like  steel  on  a  grindstone, 
simultaneously  stretching  himself  up,  and  spreading  the 
fan  of  his  tail,  opening  and  puffing  his  wings.  When  the 
sun  clears  the  horizon  he  rejoins  his  females,  dances  be- 
fore them,  while  they  devour  him  with  their  eyes,  then 
he  mounts  them,  according  to  his  caprice,  and  with  great 
vivacity. 

Polygamy  is  the  rule  among  herbivora;  bulls,  bucks, 
stallions,  bison  are  made  to  reign  over  a  troop  of  females. 
Domesticity  changes  their  permanent  polygamy  into 
successive  polygamy.  Stags  go  from  female  to  female 
without  tying  up  to  any;  the  females  follow  this  example. 
A  specie  immediately  akin  gives,  on  the  contrary,  an 
example  of  the  couple;  the  roebuck  and  his  doe  live  in 
family,  and  bring  up  their  young  until  these  are  ready 
to  mate.  The  male  of  a  certain  Asian  antelope  needs 
more  than  a  hundred  docile  females.  Naturally,  these 
153 


THE  NATURAL 

harems  can  only  be  formed  by  the  destruction  of  other 
males.  This  hundred  females  represents  possibly  more 
than  a  hundred  males  put  out  of  business,  males  being 
always  the  more  numerous  sex,  among  mammals.  The 
utility  of  such  hecatombs  to  the  race  is  not  certain. 
Doubtless  one  may  suppose  that  the  surviving  male  is 
the  strongest,  or  one  of  the  strongest  of  his  generation, 
that  is  the  lucky  element,  but  whatever  his  vigour  it  may 
be  expected  to  wane  at  some  point  or  other  before  a 
hundred  females  desiring  satisfaction.  Some  females  are 
forgotten,  others  fecundated  in  moments  of  weariness: 
for  a  certain  number  of  good  products,  there  are  a  num- 
ber of  mediocre  creations.  True,  these  are  destined,  if 
male,  to  perish  in  future  combats;  but  if  they  are  female, 
and  if  they  receive  the  favours  of  the  chief,  this  system 
might  have  for  consequence  the  progressive  degradation 
of  the  specie.  It  is  however,  probable  that  the  necessary 
equilibrium  is  re-established;  combats  between  females, 
combats  of  coquetry,  incitements  of  femininity,  doubtless 
take  place,  and  it  is  the  triumph  of  the  malest  male  and 
of  the  most  female  females. 

Virey  asserts,  in  Deterville's  "Nouveau  dictionnaire 
dliistoire  naturelle,"  that  the  greater  polygamous  apes 
get  on  very  well  with  women  indigenes.  It  is  possible, 
but  no  product  has  ever  been  born  of  these  aberrations, 
which  we  must  leave  to  theological  works  on  bestialitas. 
Men  and  women,  even  of  the  Aryan  race  have  at  times 
set  out  to  prove  the  radical  animality  of  the  human 
specie  by  the  peculiarity  of  their  tastes.  The  interest  in 
these  matters  is  chiefly  psychological,  and  if  one  can 
draw  no  proof  of  evolution  from  the  chance  relations 
154 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

between  woman  and  dog,  man  and  goat,  the  coupling  of 
primates  of  different  orders  offers  no  evidence  either. 
There  is  however  a  relation  between  man  and  apes,  it  is 
that  they  are  both  divisible  into  polygamists  and  monog- 
amists, at  least  temporary;  but  this  does  not  differentiate 
them  from  most  other  animal  species. 

In  most  human  races  there  is  a  radical  polygamy, 
dissimulated  under  a  show-front  of  monogamy.  Here 
generalizations  are  no  longer  possible,  the  individual 
emerges  and  with  his  fantasy  upsets  all  observations, 
and  annihilates  all  statistics.  The  monogamist's  brother 
is  polygamous.  A  woman  has  known  only  one  man,  and 
her  mother  was  every  one's  fancy.  One  may  assert  the 
universal  custom  of  marriage  and  deduce  monogamy  as  a 
conclusion,  and  this  will  be  false  or  true  according  to  the 
epoch,  milieu,  race,  moral  tendencies  of  the  moment. 
Moral  codes  are  essentially  unstable,  since  they  represent 
only  a  hand-book  ideal  of  happiness;  morality  will 
modify  itself  according  to  the  mobility  of  this  ideal. 

Physiologically,  monogamy  is  in  no  way  required  by 
the  normal  conditions  of  human  life.  Children?  If  the 
father's  help  is  necessary  it  can  be  exercised  over  the 
children  of  several  women  as  well  as  over  those  of  one 
woman  only.  The  duration  of  tutelage  among  civilized 
people  is,  moreover,  excessive;  it  is  dragged  out,  when 
it  is  a  matter  of  certain  careers,  almost  until  ripe  age. 
Normally  puberty  ought  to  liberate  the  young  human, 
as  it  liberates  the  young  of  other  mammals.  The  couple 
need  then  last  only  ten  or  fifteen  years;  but  female 
fecundity  accumulates  children  at  a  year's  interval,  so 
that,  as  long  as  the  father's  virility  lasts,  there  might  be 


THE  NATURAL 

always  one  feeble  creature  having  right  to  demand 
protection.  Human  polygamy  could  then,  never  be  suc- 
cessive polygamy,  save  by  exception,  that  is,  if  man  were 
an  obedient  animal,  submitting  to  normal  sexual  rules, 
and  always  fecund;  but  this  successivity  is  frequent  and 
divorce  has  legalized  it.  The  other  and  true  polygamy, 
polygamy  actual,  temporary  or  permanent,  is  still  less 
rare  among  people  of  European  civilization,  but  nearly 
always  secret  and  never  legal;  it  has  for  corollary  a 
polyandry  exercised  under  the  same  conditions.  This 
sort  of  polygamy  is  very  different  from  that  of  Mormons, 
Turks,  gallinaceae  and  antelopes,  it  is  nothing  more  than 
promiscuity.  It  does  not  dissolve  the  couple,  in  dimin- 
ishing its  tyranny  it  renders  it  more  desirable.  Nothing 
so  favours  marriage,  and  consequently,  social  stability,  as 
the  de  facto  indulgence  in  temporary  polygamy.  The 
Romans  well  understood  this,  and  legalized  concubinage. 
One  can  not  here  deal  with  a  question  so  remote  from, 
natural  questions.  To  condense  one's  answer  into  brief- 
est possible  space,  one  would  say  that  man,  and  princi- 
pally civilized  man,  is  vowed  to  the  couple,  but  he  only 
endures  it  on  condition  that  he  may  leave  and  return  to 
it  at  will.  This  solution  seems  to  conciliate  his  contra- 
dictory tastes,  and  is  more  elegant  than  the  one  offered 
by  divorce,  which  is  always  the  same  thing  over  again; 
it  is  in  conformity  not  only  with  human,  but  also  with 
animal  tendencies.  It  is  favourable  to  the  species,  in  as- 
suring the  suitable  up-bringing  of  children,  and  also  to 
the  complete  satisfaction  of  a  need,  which,  in  a  state 
of  civilization  is  inseparable  either  from  aesthetic  pleasure 
or  sentimental  pleasure. 

156 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 


CHAPTER   XVII 

LOVE  AMONG   SOCIAL   ANIMALS 

Organization  of  reproduction  among  hymenoptera. — Bees. 
— Wedding  of  the  queen. — Mother  bee,  cause  and  con- 
sciousness of  the  hive. — Sexual  royalty. — Limits  of  in- 
telligence among  bees. — Natural  logic  and  human 
logic. — Wasps. — Bumble-bees. — Ants. — Notes  on  their 
habits. — Very  advanced  state  of  their  civilization. — 
Slavery  and  parasitism  among  ants. — Termites. — The 
nine  principal  active  forms  of  termites. — Great  age  of 
their  civilization. — Beavers. — Tendency  of  industrious 
animals  to  inactivity. 

SOCIAL  hymenoptera,  bumble-bees,  hornets,  wasps,  bees, 
have  peculiar  love  customs  very  different  from  those  of 
other  animal  species.  It  is  not  monogamy,  since  one 
finds  in  it  nothing  resembling  the  couple,  nor  polygamy, 
since  the  males  know  only  one  female,  when  they  have 
even  that  adventure,  and  since  the  females  are  fecundated 
for  the  whole  of  their  life  by  a  single  fecundation.  It  is, 
rather,  a  sort  of  matriarchate,  even  though  the  queen  bee 
is  not  generally  the  mother  of  more  than  a  part  of  the 
hive  whereover  she  rules,  the  other  part  having  sprung 
from  the  queen  who  has  gone  off  with  the  new  swarm,  or 
from  the  one  who  has  remained  in  the  former  hive.  In 
very  numerous  hives  there  are  about  six  or  seven  hun- 
157 


THE  NATURAL 

dred  males  to  one  female.  Copulation  takes  place  in 
the  air;  as  is  the  case  with  ants,  it  is  only  possible  after 
a  long  flight  has  filled  with  air  the  pouches  which  cause 
the  male's  organ  to  emerge.  Between  these  pockets,  or 
aeriferous  bladders  shaped  like  perforated  horns,  emerges 
the  penis,  a  small  white  body,  plump  and  bent  back  at 
the  point.  In  the  vagina,  which  is  round,  wide  and 
shallow,  the  sperm-pouch  opens;  it  is  a  reservoir  which 
can  contain  they  say,  a  score  of  million  of  spermato- 
zoides,  destined  to  fecundate  the  eggs,  during  several 
years  in  proportion  as  they  are  to  be  laid.  The  form  of 
the  penis  and  the  manner  in  which  the  sperm  is  coagu- 
lated by  a  viscous  liquid  into  a  veritable  spermatophore, 
cause  the  death  of  the  male.  The  copulation  ended,  he 
wishes  to  disengage  himself  but  only  manages  to  do  so  in 
leaving  in  the  vagina  not  only  the  penis  but  all  the  organs 
attached  to  it.  He  falls  like  an  empty  bag,  while  the 
queen,  returned  to  the  hive,  stops  at  the  entrance,  makes 
her  toilet,  aided  by  the  workers  who  crowd  about  her: 
with  her  mandibles  she  gently  removes  the  spine  which 
has  remained  in  her  belly,  and  deans  the  place  with 
lustral  attention.  Then  she  enters  the  second  period  of 
her  life:  maternity.  This  penis  which  remains  fast  in 
the  vagina  makes  one  think  of  the  darts  of  fighters  which 
also  remain  in  the  wound;  be  it  love  or  war  the  over- 
courageous  beastlet  expires,  worn  out  and  mutilated; 
there  is  in  this  a  peculiar  facility  of  dehiscence  which 
seems  very  rare. 

The  wedding  of  the  queen  bee  remained  a  long  time 
absolutely  mysterious,  and  even  today  there  are  only  a 
very  few  observers  who  have  been  the  distant  witnesses 
158 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

of  it.  Reaumur,  having  isolated  a  queen  and  a  male,  wit- 
nessed a  play  or  combat  with  movements  which  he  inter- 
preted with  ingenuity.  He  could  not  see  the  actual  coup- 
ling, which  only  takes  place  in  the  air.  His  story,  is 
unique  and  nothing  since  has  confirmed  it.  He  shows 
us  a  queen  approaching  a  male,  sucking  him  with  her 
proboscis,  offering  him  honey,  stroking  him  with  her  feet, 
and  finally  irritated  by  the  coldness  of  her  suitor,  mount- 
ing his  back,  applying  her  vulva  to  the  male  organ, 
which  Reaumur  describes  very  well  ("Memoirs,"  tome 
V)  and  which  he  represents  as  covered  with  a  white 
viscous  liquid.  The  real  preludes,  at  least  in  a  state  of 
liberty,  contradict  the  great  observer.  The  female  seems 
in  no  way  aggressive.  Here  are  the  three  authentic 
accounts  I  have  been  able  to  discover: 

"6th  July,  1849,  M.  Hannemann,  bee-keeper  at  Wur- 
temburg,  Thuringia  was  seated  near  my  hive  when  his 
attention  was  aroused  by  an  unaccustomed  buzzing. 
Suddenly  he  saw  thirty  or  forty  drones"  (i.  e.,  false 
drones,  male  bees)  "rapidly  pursuing  a  queen-bee,  about 
twenty  or  thirty  feet  up  in  the  air.  The  group  filled  a 
space  about  two  feet  in  diameter.  Sometimes,  in  their 
flight,  they  came  as  low  as  ten  feet  from  the  ground, 
then  rose,  flying  north  to  south.  He  followed  them  about 
a  hundred  yards,  then  a  building  interrupted  him.  The 
group  of  drones  formed  a  sort  of  cone  with  the  queen  at 
the  summit,  then  the  cone  enlarged  into  a  globe  of  which 
she  was  the  centre:  at  this  moment  the  queen  succeeded 
in  getting  away  and  rose  vertically,  still  followed  by 
the  drones  who  had  reformed  the  cone  under  her."  l 

1  Bienenzeitung  (Gazette  des  Abeilles)  Janvier,  1850. 
159 


THE  NATURAL 

"Some  years  later  the  Rev.  Millette,  at  Witemarsh, 
observed  the  final  phase  of  the  act.  During  a  hiving, 
he  noticed  a  flying  queen,  who  an  instant  later,  was 
stopped  by  a  male.  After  having  flown  about  a  rod  they 
fell  to  the  ground  hooked  to  each  other.  He  approached 
and  captured  them  both,  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
male  had  abandoned  himself  to  the  embrace;  he  carried 
them  to  the  house  and  let  them  loose  in  a  closed  room. 
The  queen,  angry,  flew  toward  the  window;  the  male 
after  dragging  himself  for  an  instant  across  the  open  palm 
of  the  observer's  hand,  fell  to  floor  and  died.  Both 
male  and  female  had  at  the  tip  of  the  abdomen  drops  of 
a  milky  white  liquid;  by  squeezing  the  male,  he  saw 
that  the  male  had  lost  his  genital  organs."  (Farmer  and 
Gardener,  1859.) 

"Having  seen  the  queen  go  out,  M.  Carrey  closed  the 
entrance  of  the  hive.  During  his  absence,  which  lasted 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  three  false-drones  came  to  the  en- 
trance and  finding  it  closed,  continued  flying.  When  the 
queen  on  her  return  was  only  about  three  feet  from  the 
hive,  one  of  the  drones  flew  very  rapidly  toward  her, 
throwing  his  legs  around  her  body.  They  stopped,  rest- 
ing on  a  long  grass-blade.  Then  an  explosion  was  dis- 
tinctly heard,  and  they  separated.  The  drone  fell  to 
the  ground  quite  dead,  with  abdomen  much  contracted. 
After  a  few  circles  in  the  air,  the  mother  entered  the 
hive."  (Copulation  of  the  mother  bee,  in  1'Apiculteur, 
6e  annee,  1862.) 

Save  the  remark  about  the  final  explosion,  these  three 
accounts  accord  well  enough,  and  give  an  exact  idea  of 
one  of  the  couplings  most  difficult  to  get  sight  of. 
160 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

It  is,  moreover,  the  one  half-obscure  point  in  bee  life. 
One  knows  all  the  rest,  their  three  sexes,  rigorously 
specialized,  the  precise  industry  of  the  wax-workers,  the 
diligence  of  the  collectresses,  the  political  sense  of  these 
extraordinary  amazons,  their  initiatives,  when  the  hive 
is  too  full,  their  starts  for  the  formation  of  new  swarms, 
the  duels  of  queens  where  the  populace  intervene,  the 
massacre  of  males  as  soon  as  they  are  useless,  the  nurse's 
art  in  transforming  a  vulgar  larva  into  the  larva  of  a 
queen,  the  methodical  activity  of  these  republics  where 
all  wills,  united  in  a  single  conscience,  have  no  other  aim 
but  the  common  well-being  and  the  conservation  of  the 
race.  It  is  however  these  over-mechanical  virtues  which 
constitute  the  inferiority  of  the  bee;  the  workers  are 
extremely  laborious  and  well-behaved,  but  they  lack  even 
that  slight  personality  which  characterizes  sexed  insects. 
The  much  less  reasonable  queen  is  more  living,  she  is 
capable  of  jealousy,  rage,  of  despair  when  she  feels  her 
royalty  menaced  by  the  new  queen  whom  the  nurses 
have  bred  up  in  secret.  Even  the  useless,  noisy,  pillag- 
ing, parasitic  males,  drunk  and  swollen  with  vain  sperm 
are  more  attractive  than  the  honest  workers,  and  hand- 
somer also,  stronger,  more  slender,  more  elegant.  Bee- 
lovers  generally  despise  these  musketeers,  yet  it  is  they 
who  incarnate  the  animality,  that  is  to  say  the  beauty 
of  the  specie.  If  it  is  true  as  M.  Maeterlinck  believes 
(La  Vie  des  Abeilles),  that  the  most  vigorous  of  seven 
or  eight  hundred  males  finally  seduces  the  royal  virgin, 
then  their  laziness,  their  greediness,  their  giddy  stagger- 
ing are  but  so  many  virtues. 

It  seems  that  the  queen  and  even  the  workers  can 
161 


THE  NATURAL 

without  fecundation  lay  eggs  which  will  hatch  into  males; 
but  copulation  is  necessary  in  order  to  produce  females 
and  queens;  now  as  only  the  queen  can  receive  the 
male,  a  hive  without  a  queen  is  doomed.  That  is  the 
practical  point  of  view,  the  sexual  point  of  view  leads 
to  other  reflections.  A  female  can,  quite  alone,  give 
birth  to  a  male:  but  to  have  an  egg  hatch  female,  it 
must  be  fecundated  by  a  male  born  spontaneously:  one 
observes  here  the  real  exteriorization  of  the  male  organ, 
a  segmentation  of  the  genital  power,  into  two  forces,  the 
male  force  and  the  female.  Thus  disunited,  it  acquires 
a  new  faculty  which  will  fully  unfold  itself  by  the  reinte- 
gration  of  the  two  halves  of  the  initial  force  into  a  single 
force.  But  why  do  the  virgin-born  ovules  necessarily 
give  birth  to  males,  among  bees,  and  to  females  among 
plant  lice?  That  is  the  question  defying  answer.  All 
that  one  sees  is  that  parthenogenesis  is  always  transitory, 
and  that  after  a  number  of  virginal  generations,  normal 
fecundation  always  intervenes. 

One  can  not  say  that  the  mother  bee  is  a  true  queen, 
a  veritable  chief,  but  she  is  the  important  personage  in 
the  hive,  the  one  without  whom  life  stops.  The  workers 
have  the  air  of  being  mistresses;  in  reality  their  nervous 
centre  is  in  the  queen;  they  act  only  for  her,  and  by  her. 
Her  disappearance  sets  the  hive  crazy,  and  drives  it 
to  absurd  endeavours,  such  as  the  transformation  of  a 
nurse  into  a  layer,  though  she  will  give  eggs  of  one  sex 
only,  so  many  useless  mouths.  In  reflecting  on  this  last 
expedient  one  can  measure  the  importance  of  sex,  and 
understand  the  absolutism  of  its  royalty.  Sex  is  king, 
and  there  is  no  royalty  save  the  sexual.  The  making 
162 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

neuter  of  the  workers,  which  sets  them  out  of  norm, 
if  it  is  a  cause  of  order  in  the  hive,  is  above  all  a  cause 
of  death.  There  are  no  living  creatures  save  those 
who  can  perpetuate  life. 

The  interest  offered  by  bees  is  very  great,  but  does 
not  pass  that  offered  by  the  observation  of  most  hymenop- 
tera,  social  or  solitary,  or  of  certain  neuroptera,  such  as 
termites ;  or  even  by  beavers,  and  many  birds.  But  bees 
have  been  through  many  ages  our  sugar-producers,  and 
they  alone;  hence  man's  tenderness  for  insects  more  valu- 
able than  all  others  to  him.  Their  intelligence  is  well  de- 
veloped, but  soon  shows  its  limitations.  People  pretend 
that  bees  know  their  master,  a  manifest  error.  The 
relations  of  bees  and  man  are  purely  human.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  they  are  as  ignorant  of  man  as  are  all  the 
other  insects,  and  all  other  invertebrata.  They  allow 
themselves  to  be  exploited,  in  the  sense  of  their  instinct, 
to  the  limit  of  famine  and  muscular  exhaustion.  Virgil's 
phrase  is  excessively  true,  in  all  the  senses  one  wishes 
to  take:  Sic  vos  non  vobis  mellificatis  apes.  (Bees  mak- 
ing honey  not  for  yourselves.)  These  clever,  witty 
creatures  are  fooled  by  the  gross  fakes  of  our  industrial 
cunning.  When  they  have  stacked  their  winter's  pro- 
visions, honey,  into  their  wax  combs,  one  removes  the 
honeycombs,  and  replaces  them  by  sockets  of  varnished 
paper:  and  the  solemn  bees,  set  themselves  to  forgetting 
their  long  labours;  before  these  virgin  combs,  they  have 
but  one  idea:  to  fill  them.  They  restart  work  with  a 
bustle  which  would  excite  veritable  pity  in  any  man  but 
a  bee-keeper.  These  commercials  have  invented  a  hive 
163 


THE  NATURAL 

with   moveable   combs.     The   bees   will    never   know. 
Bees  are  stupid. 

But  we  who  see  the  limits  of  intelligence  in  bees, 
should  consider  the  limits  of  our  own.  There  are  limits; 
it  is  possible  to  conceive  brains  who  observing  us,  would 
say:  men  are  stupid.  All  intelligence  is  limited;  it  is 
just  this  shock  against  the  limit,  against  the  wall,  which 
by  the  pain  it  causes,  engenders  consciousness.  We  are 
not  to  laugh  too  much  at  the  bees  who  gaily  furnish  the 
mobile  combs  of  their  improved  hives.  We  are  perhaps 
the  slaves  of  a  master  who  exploits  us,  and  who  will  re- 
main forever  unknown.  The  polygamy,  or  if  one  wish, 
the  polyandry  of  bees,  pretext  for  this  digression,  is 
then  purely  virtual;  it  is  in  the  state  of  possibility,  but 
it  will  never  be  realized,  since  the  fecundity  of  the  queen 
is  assured  by  a  single  act.  The  excessive  multiplicity  of 
males  corresponds  doubtless  to  an  ancient  order  in  which 
the  females  were  more  numerous.  In  any  case  only 
two  or  three  males  out  of  about  a  thousand,  are  used, 
or  let  us  say  ten,  if  you  wish  to  suppose  very  frequent 
swarming,  this  demonstrates  that  one  must  not  pre- 
judge the  habits  of  an  animal  specie  by  the  over- 
abundance of  one  sex  or  another,  and  that,  in  a  general 
fashion,  one  must  place  natural  logic  above  our  human 
logic,  derived  from  mathematical  logic.  Facts  in  nature 
are  connected  by  a  thousand  knots  of  which  no  one 
is  solvable  by  human  logic.  When  one  of  these  tangles 
is  unravelled  before  our  eyes  we  marvel  at  the  simplicity 
of  its  mechanism,  we  think  we  understand,  we  make  gen- 
eralities, we  prepare  to  open  neighbouring  mysteries  with 
the  same  key:  illusion.  One  always  has  to  begin  again 
164 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

at  the  start.  Thus  the  sciences  of  observation  become 
increasingly  obscure  as  one  penetrates  further  into  the 
labyrinth. 

Among  wasps  and  hornets  there  is  nothing  resembling 
polygamy,  even  potentially.  A  fecundated  female  after 
passing  the  winter,  constructs,  by  herself,  the  first  foun- 
dations of  a  nest,  lays  the  eggs,  from  which  sexless  in- 
dividuals are  born;  these  workers  then  assume  all  material 
labours,  finish  the  nest,  watch  the  larvae  which  the 
female  continues  to  produce.  These  are  now  males  and 
females:  after  coupling  the  males  die,  then  the  workers, 
the  females  become  languid,  those  who  survive  will 
found  as  many  new  tribes. 

The  generation  of  bumble-bees  is  more  curious,  the 
differentiation  of  castes  more  complicated.  There  are 
among  them,  males,  workers,  small  females,  great  females. 
A  great  female,  having  passed  the  winter,  founds  a  nest  in 
the  earth,  often  in  moss  (there  is  a  sort  called  the  moss 
bee),  she  constructs  a  wax  comb,  lays.  From  the  first 
eggs  come  workers  who,  as  in  wasps,  construct  the  defini- 
tive nest,  pillage,  make  honey,  and  being  more  industrious 
than  the  other  sort  of  bees  who  fear  dampness,  they  scour 
the  country  long  after  sunset.  After  the  workers,  the 
little  females  see  light;  they  have  no  function  save  lay- 
ing, without  fecundation,  the  eggs  which  will  hatch  male. 
Simultaneously  the  queen  produces  great  females  who 
will  soon  couple  with  the  males.  Then,  as  with  wasps, 
all  the  colony  dies  except  the  fecundated  great  females, 
by  whom  the  cycle  will  recommence,  the  following  spring. 

There  are  three  casts  of  ants,  or  four  if  one  count 
the  division  of  neuters  into  workers  and  fighters,  as 
165 


THE  NATURAL 

among  termites.  Here,  as  with  bees,  the  neuters  are  the 
base  of  the  republic,  the  males  die  after  mating,  the 
females  after  laying.  "There  are,"  says  M.  Janet 
(Recherches  sur  I'anatomie  de  la  jourmt)  "workers  so 
different  from  the  others,  in  the  development  of  their 
mandibles  and  the  largeness  of  their  heads  that  one 
calls  them  soldiers,  a  name  according  with  the  role  they 
fill  in  the  colony."  These  soldiers  are  also  butchers,  who 
cut  up  prey  which  is  too  large  or  dangerous.  Specializa- 
tion is  the  only  superiority  of  the  neuters  who  for  the 
rest  seem  inferior  to  the  females  and  to  the  males  in 
size,  muscling  and  visual  organs.  The  females  are  some- 
times half  as  large  again  as  the  neuters,  the  males  being 
between  the  two  sizes.  The  ant  shows  much  more  in- 
telligence than  the  bee.  Before  this  tiny  people  one 
seems  really  to  touch  humanity.  Consider  that  the  ants 
have  slaves,  and  domestic  animals.  First  the  plant  lice, 
preferably  those  who  live  on  roots,  and,  at  need,  those 
of  the  rose-bush,  who  are  milked,  and  who  permit  it, 
subjected  by  long  heredity.  Aphis  jormicarum  vacca, 
says  Linnaeus  briefly  (beetle  the  ants'  cow).  But  wan- 
dering herds  are  not  enough  for  them,  they  keep  in  the 
interior  of  their  ant-hills,  colonies  of  slave  plant-lice,  of 
domesticated  staphylins.  The  staphylins  are  small 
coleoptera  with  mobile  abdomen,  one  of  their  species  is 
only  found  among  ants.  They  are  domesticated  to  the 
point  of  no  longer  being  able  to  feed  themselves:  the  ants 
stuff  the  necessary  food  into  their  mouths.  In  return  the 
staphylins  furnish  their  masters  a  revenue  analogous  to 
that  which  they  get  from  the  plant-lice:  from  the  bunch 
of  hairs  rising  at  the  base  of  their  abdomen  they  seem  to 
1 66 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

exude  a  delectable  liquor,  at  least  one  sees  the  ants  suck 
these  hairs  with  great  eagerness.  These  animals  permit 
it.  They  are  so  much  at  home,  that  the  same  observer 
(Muller,  traduit  par  Brulle,  dans  le  Dictionnaire  d'his- 
toirc  naturelle  de  Guerin,  au  mot  Pselaphiens}  has  seen 
them  coupling  without  fear  in  the  midst  of  the  busy  ant 
people,  the  male  hunched  on  the  back  of  the  female, 
solidly  crammed  against  the  mellifluous  tuft  of  ant's 
delicacies. 

One  knows  that  the  red  ants  make  war  on  the  black 
ants  and  steal  their  nymphs,  who,  retained  in  captivity, 
make  them  excellent  domestics,  attentive  and  obedient. 
White  humanity  also,  at  one  point  in  its  history,  found 
itself  faced  with  a  like  opportunity,  but  less  prudent 
than  the  red  ant,  it  let  it  pass,  from  sentimentalism,  thus 
betraying  its  destiny,  renouncing,  under  Christian  inspira- 
tion, the  complete  and  logical  development  of  its  civiliza- 
tion. Is  it  not  amusing  that  slavery  is  presented  to  us  as 
anti-natural,  when  it  is  on  the  contrary,  normal  and  ex- 
cessively natural  to  the  most  intelligent  of  animals? 
And  in  an  order  of  ideas  more  closely  related  to  the  sub- 
ject of  this  book,  if  the  making  neuter  of  a  part  of  the 
population,  placing  them  in  castes  vowed  to  continence, 
is  an  anti-natural  attempt,  how  is  it  that  social  hymenop- 
tera,  ants,  bees,  bumble-bees,  and  termites  among  neurop- 
tera,  have  managed  it  so  well,  and  have  made  it  the 
basis  of  their  social  state?  Doubtless  there  is  nothing 
like  it  among  animals;  but  mammals,  apart  from  man, 
that  monster,  even  including  beavers,  are  infinitely  in- 
ferior to  insects.  If  the  habits  of  social  birds  (for  there 
are  such)  were  better  known,  one  might  find  analogous 
167 


THE  NATURAL 

practices  among  them.  The  sexual  co-operation  of  all 
the  members  of  a  people  being  useless  so  far  as  the  con- 
servation of  the  race  is  concerned;  and  on  the  other 
hand  inferior  species  living  as  neighbours  to  a  superior 
species  being  destined  to  disappear,  slavery  is  good  for 
the  inferiors  as  it  assures  them  perpetuity  and  a  sort  of 
evolution  suited  to  their  feebleness. 

A  little  brown  ant,  the  anergates,  having  no  workers 
establishes  itself  as  parasite  in  an  ant-hill  and  gets  itself 
served  by  workers  of  another  species  in  order  to  live. 
What  ingenuity  of  the  sexed,  what  docility  of  the  sexless! 
The  worker  ants  are  clearly  degenerate  females,  among 
whom  sexual  sensibility  has  been  completely  trans- 
formed into  maternal  sensibility.  One  observes,  more- 
over, in  many  species  an  intermediate  type  of  woman- 
worker,  who  gives  the  key  to  this  evolution.  One  should 
note  that  after  fecundation  the  females  do  not  all  re- 
enter  the  city;  where  they  fall,  they  build,  as  mother- 
bumble-bees,  a  provisory  nest,  acting  then  like  workers, 
and  await  the  first  egg-laying,  which  will  produce  ex- 
clusively real  workers  and  will  thereby  permit  the  normal 
construction  of  the  new  ant-hill. 

There  are  among  ants,  as  among  butterflies,  hermaph- 
rodites along  the  medial  line,  or  sometimes  along  an 
oblique  line:  this  gives  absurd  creatures,  half  one  thing, 
half  the  other,  or  singularities  such  as  a  female  with  a 
worker's  h?ad  who  functions  as  a  worker.1 

Polygamy  by  massacre  of  males,  as  among  herbivora, 
and  gallinaceae  seems  a  step  toward  a  more  logical  and 

»E.  Rambert,  after  A.  Forel,  les  Moeurs  des  fourmis  (Biblio- 
theque  universelle,  tome  LV). 

168 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

more  economic  distribution  of  the  sexes.  If  antelopes 
perpetuate  themselves  very  well  with  one  male  to  an 
hundred  females,  is  it  not  an  indication  that  a  part  at 
least  of  the  sacrificed  males  might  have  dispensed  with 
being  born?  And  would  it  not  be  better,  in  the  interest 
of  the  antelopes,  that  a  part  of  these  males,  if  they  ought 
to  continue  to  be  born,  should  be  normally  sexless,  as 
with  termites,  and  entrusted  with  some  social  duty? 

The  organization  of  termites  is  very  pretty;  it  will 
do  to  finish  off  this  brief  review  of  animal  societies 
founded  on  the  unsexing  of  sexes.  One  has  already 
noted,  in  the  chapters  on  dimorphism,  the  diversity  of 
sexual  forms,  corresponding  to  four  quite  distinct  castes. 
The  minute  examination  of  one  of  their  republics  per- 
mits one  to  assert  differentiations  much  more  numerous, 
for  each  of  the  principal  castes  passes  through  active 
larval  and  nymphal  forms,  adolescent  forms,  such  as 
most  neuroptera  and  libellules  also  present.  In  taking 
count  of  all  the  nuances  one  may  observe  in  a  state 
(to  use  the  familiar  word)  of  termites  fifteen  different 
forms,  all  with  marked  characteristics.  The  principal 
are:  i.  Workers,  2.  Soldiers,  3.  Small  males,  4.  Small 
females,  5.  Large  males,  6.  Large  females,  7.  Nymphs 
with  little  cases,  8.  Nymphs  with  long  cases,  9.  Larvae. 
When  one  attacks  an  ant  hill,  the  soldiers  arrive  at  the 
breach,  very  threatening,  odd,  with  their  bodies  all  head, 
all  mandibles.  The  enemy  routed,  the  workers  come  to 
repair  the  damage.  There  are  sometimes  several  female 
egg-layers;  sometimes  there  is  only  one  male:  copula- 
tion always  takes  place  outside  the  hill,  and  as  with  ants, 
the  males  perish,  while  the  fecundated  females  become 
169 


THE  NATURAL 

the  origin  of  a  new  state.  The  expeditions  of  travelling 
termites,  common  as  fighting  termites  in  South  Africa, 
are  naturally  directed  by  soldiers.  Sparmann  (cited  in 
Guerin's  Dictionnaire  d'histoire  naturelle)  observed 
them  during  his  voyage  to  the  Cape,  and  says  they  be- 
have rather  as  non-coms  in  close  rank,  or  climbing  onto 
grass  blades,  watch  the  defile,  beating  with  their  feet, 
if  the  order  were  bad,  or  too  slow.  The  signal  is  at  once 
understood,  and  obeyed  by  the  rank  at  once,  is  answered 
by  a  whistle.  There  is  in  this  something  so  marvellous 
that  one  hesitates  to  accept  the  traveller's  interpreta- 
tion in  entirety.  It  is  not  the  spontaneous  and  mechani- 
cal discipline  of  the  ants,  but  the  consenting  obedience, 
so  difficult  to  obtain  from  inferior  humanities.  After 
all,  nothing  is  impossible,  and  without  being  credulous 
in  these  matters,  one  need  be  astonished  at  nothing. 
Nevroptera  are,  moreover,  exceeding  old  on  the  earth; 
they  date  from  before  the  coal-beds:  their  civilization  is 
some  thousands  of  centuries  older  than  human  civiliza- 
tions. 

Beavers  are  the  only  mammals,  man  excepted,  whose 
industry  indicates  an  intelligence  near  that  of  insects. 
But  their  societies  offer  no  complication,  they  are  a 
simple  grouping  of  couples.  They  do  not  construct  their 
dams  until  the  females  have  been  delivered,  this  hap- 
pens toward  the  end  of  July,  one  sees  no  other  con- 
nection between  their  sexual  habits  and  their  remark- 
able works. 

These  enormous  trees  felled  and  made  to  lie  where 
intended,  these  piles  stuck  in  the  river-bed  and  inter- 
bound  with  twisted  branches,  these  impermeable  dams, 
170 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

all  this  hard  and  complicated  work,  the  beaver  accepts 
when  pushed  by  necessity.  He  needs  an  artificial  lake 
with  unvarying  depth;  if  he  finds  one  made  by  nature, 
he  accepts  it,  and  limits  himself  to  erecting  his  regular 
huts.  Thus  osmies-,  chalicodomes,  or  xylocopes, — or  men, 
if  they  find  by  chance  a  nest  prepared,  hasten  to  profit 
by  it.  The  instinct  of  construction  is  by  no  means  blind ; 
it  is  a  faculty  which  will  not  be  employed  very  often 
save  in  extremity:  the  present  inhabitant  of  the  Loire 
valley  still  arranges  the  caves  for  domestic  use.  To  its 
injury,  but  of  that  it  knows  nothing,  the  bee  profits 
by  the  artificial  combs  slid  into  its  hive.  The  Rhone 
beaver  has  rested  ever  since  men  erected  such  excellent 
dams  there.  The  fairy  palace  which  rises  in  mid  forest 
for  the  rubbing  of  a  ring  is  the  human,  and  animal, 
ideal. 

I  must  close  these  observations  on  natural  societies, 
in  pointing  out  that  if  they  are  today  based  on  some- 
thing quite  different  from  polygamy,  it  seems  likely 
that  they  were  in  origin  societies  either  of  polygamy  or 
of  sexual  communism.  If  one  starts  from  communism 
one  will  very  soon  evolve  either  toward  the  couple,  or 
toward  polygamy,  if  it  is  a  matter  of  mammals;  or  toward 
sexual  neutralization  if  it  is  a  matter  of  insects.  The 
couple,  polygamy,  neutralization  are  methods;  sexual 
communism  is  not  a  method,  and  for  that  reason  one 
must  consider  it  as  the  chaos  from  which  order  has 
little  by  little  emerged. 


171 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  QUESTION  OF  ABERRATIONS 

Two  sorts  of  sexual  aberration. — Sexual  aberrations  of 
animals. — Those  of  men. — Crossing  of  species. — Chas- 
tity.— Modesty. — Varieties  and  localizations  of  sexual 
bash  fulness. — Artificial  creation  of  modesty. — Sort  of 
modesty  natural  to  all  females. — Cruelty. — Picture  of 
carnage. — The  cricket  eaten  alive. — Habits  of  carabes. 
— Every  living  creature  is  a  prey. — Necessity  to  kitt 
or  to  be  killed. 

SEXUAL  aberrations  are  of  two  sorts.  The  cause  of  the 
error  is  internal,  or  external.  The  flower  of  the  arum 
muscivorum  (fly-catching  arum)  by  its  cadaverous  odour 
attracts  flies  in  search  of  rotting  flesh  in  which  to  lay 
their  eggs.  Schopenhauer  has  supported  by  this,  or 
analogous,  fact  a  theory  just,  but  somewhat  summary,  of 
aberration  from  external  cause.  Aberration  from  internal 
cause  is  sometimes  explained  by  the  statement  that  the 
same  arteries  irrigate  and  the  same  nerves  animate  the 
region  of  the  sacrum,  anterior  and  posterior;  the  excretal 
canals  being  always  near  each  other,  and  sometimes 
common,  at  least  for  part  of  their  length.  One  has  spoken 
seriously  of  the  drake's  sodomy,  but  anatomy  refuses  to 
understand  it.  Whether  a  drake  frequents  another 
drake  or  a  duck,  he  addresses  himself  in  both  cases 
to  the  single  door  of  a  vestibule  into  which  all  excre- 
172 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

tions  are  poured.  Doubtless  the  drake  is  aberrated,  and 
his  accomplice  still  more  so,  but  nature  deserves  part  of 
the  blame.  In  general,  animal  aberrations  require  very 
simple  explanations.  There  is  a  keen  desire,  and  very 
urgent  need,  which  if  unsatisfied  produces  an  inquietude, 
which  may  augment  until  a  sort  of  momentary  madness 
takes  hold  of  the  animal,  and  throws  it  blindly  upon  all 
sorts  of  illusions.  This  may  go,  doubtless,  to  the  point 
of  hallucination.  There  is  also  a  need,  purely  muscular, 
of  at  least  sketching  in  the  sexual  act,  either  passive  or 
active;  one  sees,  by  singular  inversion,  cows  in  heat 
mounting  each  other,  perhaps  with  the  idea  of  exciting 
the  male,  or  perhaps  the  visual  representation  which  they 
make  themselves  of  the  desired  act,  forces  them  to  try 
an  imitation:  it  is  a  marvellous  example,  because  it  is 
absurd,  of  the  motor  force  of  images. 

There  are  two  parts  in  the  sexual  act;  that  of  the 
specie,  and  that  of  the  individual;  but  that  of  the  specie 
is  only  given  it  by  means  of  the  individual.  In  relation 
to  the  male  in  rut,  it  is  a  question  of  a  very  simple 
natural  need.  He  must  empty  his  spermatic  canals: 
lacking  females  they  say  the  stag  rubs  his  prong  on 
trees  to  provoke  ejaculation.  Bitches  in  heat  rub  their 
vulva  on  the  ground.  Such  are  the  rudiments  of  onanism, 
suddenly  carried  by  primates  to  such  a  high  degree  of 
perfection.  One  has  seen  male  cantharides,  themselves 
ridden,  riding  other  males;  the  argule,  a  small  crustacean 
parasite  of  fresh-water  fish,  is  so  ardent  that  he  often 
addresses  himself  to  other  males,  or  to  gravid  or  even 
dead  females.  From  the  microscopic  beasts  to  man, 
aberration  is  everywhere;  but  one  should,  rather,  call  it, 
173 


THE  NATURAL 

at  least  among  animals,  impatience.  Animals  are  by 
no  means  mere  machines,  they,  as  well  as  men,  are 
capable  of  imaginations,  they  dream,  they  have  illusions, 
they  are  subject  to  desires  whose  source  is  in  the  interior 
movement  of  their  organism.  The  sight  or  odour  of  a 
female  over-excites  the  male;  but  far  from  any  female, 
the  logic  of  the  vital  movement  suffices  perfectly  to  put 
them  in  a  state  of  rut;  it  is  absolutely  the  same  with 
females.  If  the  state  of  rut,  and  if  the  sensibilization  of 
the  genital  parts  is  established  far  from  necessary  sex, 
we  have  here  a  natural  cause  of  aberration,  for  it  is  this 
special  sensibility  which  must  be  used:  the  first  simu- 
lacrum, or  even  the  first  propitious  obstacle  will  be  the 
adversary  against  which  the  exasperated  animal  exercises 
the  energy  by  which  he  is  tormented. 

One  may  apply  the  general  principles  of  this  psychology 
to  man,  but  on  condition  that  we  do  not  forget  that 
man's  genital  sensibility  is  apt  to  be  awakened  at  any 
moment,  and  that  for  him  the  causes  of  aberration  are 
multiplied  ad  infinitum.  There  would  be  extremely  few 
aberrated  men  and  women  if  moral  customs  permitted  a 
quite  simple  satisfaction  of  sexual  needs,  if  it  were  pos- 
sible for  the  two  sexes  to  meet  always  at  the  opportune 
moment.  There  would  remain  aberrations  of  anatomical 
order;  they  would  be  less  frequent  and  less  tyrannic,  if 
our  customs,  instead  of  contriving  ways  to  make  sexual 
relations  very  difficult,  should  favour  them.  But  this 
easiness  is  only  possible,  in  promiscuity,  which  is  possibly 
a  worse  ill  than  aberration.  Thus  all  questions  are  in- 
soluble, and  one  can  only  improve  nature  by  disorganiz- 
ing her.  Human  order  is  often  a  disorder  worse  than 
174 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

spontaneous  disorder,  because  it  is  a  forced  and  pre- 
mature finality,  an  inopportune  turning  of  the  vital 
river  out  of  its  course. 

Sexual  selection  is  probably  not  a  source  of  variation 
(i.  e.,  of  type) ;  its  role  is,  on  the  contrary,  to  keep  the 
specie  in  statu  quo.  The  causes  of  variation  are  prob- 
ably changes  of  climate,  the  nature  of  the  soil,  the  general 
milieu,  and  also  disease,  the  troubles  of  blood  and  nerve 
circulation — perhaps  certain  sexual  aberrations.  I  say. 
"perhaps,"  for  the  cross-breeding  between  individuals  ol 
different  species,  living  in  liberty,  seems  difficult,  as  soon 
as  the  species  is  really  something  different  from  a  variety 
in  evolution,  a  form  still  seeking  itself.  At  that  stage 
anything  is  possible;  but  one  is  speaking  of  species 
(i.  e.,  set  species).  Mules,  bardots,  leporides  are  artificial 
products;  one  has  never  found  them  in  free  nature. 
It  is  very  difficult  to  obtain  the  copulation  of  a  hare  and 
she-rabbit;  the  she-rabbit  is  refractory  and  the  hare 
lacking  enthusiasm.  The  mare  very  often  refuses  the 
ass;  if  she  turns  her  head  at  the  moment  of  his  mounting, 
one  has  to  bandage  her  eyes  to  overcome  her  disgust;  it  is 
the  same  with  the  she-ass  whom  one  offers  a  stallion  for 
producing  the  bardot.  As  for  the  product  of  bull  and 
mare,  the  celebrated  jumart  is  a  chimaera:  comparison  of 
the  meagre  prong  of  the  bull  to  the  massive  one  of  the 
stallion  is  enough  to  convince  one  that  such  dissimilar 
instruments  can  not  replace  each  other.  Nevertheless  it 
would  be  imprudent  wholly  to  rule  out  this  form  of 
sexual  aberration  from  the  causes  of  variability  of  species. 
That  is  perhaps  one  of  its  justifications. 

Of  all  sexual  aberrations  perhaps  the  most  curious  is 
I7S 


THE  NATURAL 

chastity.  Not  that  it  is  anti-natural,  nothing  is  anti- 
natural,  but  because  of  the  pretexts  it  obeys.  Bees,  ants, 
termites,  present  examples  of  perfect  chastity,  but  of 
chastity  that  is  utilized,  social  chastity.  Involuntary, 
congenital,  the  neuter  state  among  insects  is  a  state 
de  facto,  equivalent  to  the  sexual  state,  and  the  origin 
of  a  characterized  activity.  In  humans  it  is  a  state,  often 
only  apparent  or  transitory,  obtained  voluntarily  or  de- 
manded by  necessity,  a  precarious  condition,  so  difficult 
to  maintain  that  people  have  heaped  up  about  it  all 
sorts  of  moral  and  religious  walls,  and  even  real  walls 
made  of  stones  and  mortar.  Permanent  and  voluntary 
chastity  is  nearly  always  a  religious  practice.  Men,  in 
all  ages,  have  been  persuaded  that  perfection  of  being 
was  only  obtainable  by  such  renunciation.  This  seems 
absurd;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  very  direct  logic.  The  only 
means  of  not  being  an  animal  is  to  abstain  from  the  act 
to  which  all  animals  without  exception  deliver  them- 
selves. It  is  the  same  motive  that  has  made  people 
imagine  abstinence,  fasting;  but  as  one  can  not  live 
without  eating,  and  as  one  can  live  without  making 
love,  this  second  method  of  perfectionment  has  remained 
in  the  state  of  outline. 

It  is  true,  asceticism,  of  which  humanity  alone  is 
capable,  is  one  of  the  means  which  may  lift  us  above 
animality;  but  by  itself  it  is  insufficient  to  do  this;  by 
itself  it  is  good  for  nothing,  save  perhaps  to  excite  sterile 
pride;  one  must  add  to  it  an  active  exercise  of  the  intel- 
ligence. It  remains  to  know  whether  asceticism,  which 
deprives  the  sensibility  of  one  of  its  healthiest  and  most 
stimulating  nutriments  is  favourable  to  the  exercise  of  the 
176 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

intelligence.  As  it  is  not  the  least  necessary  to  answer 
this  question  here,  we  will  say  nothing  save  this,  proviso- 
rily:  one  need  not  scorn  chastity  nor  disdain  asceticism. 

Is  modesty  an  aberration?  Indulgent  observers  have 
believed  that  they  noticed  it  in  elephants  as  well  as 
in  rabbits.  The  modesty  of  the  elephant  is  a  popular 
maxim  which  makes  right-minded  women  cast  sheep's 
eyes,  in  circuses,  at  the  great  beast  who  hides  for  her 
amours.  During  copulation,  says  a  celebrated  rabbit- 
raiser  x  "the  male  and  female  should  be  alone,  in  demi- 
obscurity.  This  solitude  and  obscurity  are  more  neces- 
sary in  view  of  the  fact  that  certain  females  show  signs 
of  modesty."  The  modesty  of  animals  is  a  fancy.  Like 
modesty  among  humans,  it  is  merely  the  mask  of  fear, 
the  crystallization  of  timorous  habits,  necessitated  by  the 
animals  being  unarmed  during  coupling.  This  is  very 
well  known  and  needs  no  explanation.  But  the  need  of 
reproduction  is  so  tyrannic  that,  even  among  the  most 
timid  animals,  it  does  not  always  leave  them  presence  of 
mind  enough  to  hide  themselves  during  the  amour.  The 
most  domesticated  of  animals,  one  knows  it  only  too 
well,  shows  at  this  moment  neither  fear  nor  shame. 

In  man,  among  the  civilized  and  among  the  uncivilized, 
sexual  fear,  shame,  has  taken  a  thousand  forms  which, 
for  the  most  part,  seem  to  have  no  longer  any  relation  to 
the  original  feeling  whence  they  are  derived.  One  notices 
however  that  if  the  milieu  where  the  couple  finds  itself 
is  such  that  no  attack,  no  ridicule  is  to  be  feared,  shame 

1  Mariot-Didieux,  Guide  pratique  de  1'educateur  de  lapins. 
Bibliotheque  des  professions  industrielles  et  agricoles,  serie  H. 
No.  17. 

177 


THE  NATURAL 

vanishes,  in  part,  or  entirely,  according  to  the  degree  of 
security,  and  the  degree  of  excitement.  For  a  crowd 
of  populace  on  a  fete  night  there  is  hardly  any  modesty 
save  "legal  modesty";  the  example  of  one  bolder  couple 
is  enough,  if  there  is  no  authority  to  be  feared,  to  set 
loose  all  the  appetites,  and  one  then  sees  clearly  that 
man  who  does  not  hide  in  order  to  eat,  only  hides  to  make 
love  under  pressure  of  usage. 

From  the  genital  act,  modesty  is  stretched  over  the 
exterior  sexual  organs  by  a  mechanism  very  simple  and 
very  logical.  But  here,  I  think,  one  must  distinguish 
between  genital  modesty  bred  from  the  custom  of  cloth- 
ing the  whole  body,  and  that  which  has  led  men  to  cover 
only  a  particular  part.  Heat,  cold,  rain,  insects  explain 
clothing,  but  not  the  savage's  cotton  drawers  or  the  fig 
leaf;  especially  when  the  leaf,  imposed  on  married 
women,  for  example,  is  forbidden  to  virgins,  or  when 
this  symbolic  leaf  is  so  reduced  that  it  serves  no  purpose, 
save  that  of  a  sign.  In  this  last  case,  it  has  not  even 
any  direct  relation  to  genital  modesty;  it  is  only  a 
matrimonial  ornament,  analogous  to  the  ring  or  the 
collar,  a  sign,  indeed  indicating  a  condition.  It  is  pos- 
sible also,  that  among  certain  peoples  where  the  men  go 
entirely  naked,  the  women  wear  an  apron  merely  to 
keep  off  flies,  gad-flies,  rather  as  a  peasant  drapes  his 
horse's  muzzle  with  grass  and  leaves.  Quite  often,  how- 
ever, one  is  forced  to  recognize  in  these  customs,  the 
proof  of  a  particular  genital  sensibility,  analogous  to 
civilized  modesty.  An  English  sailor,  at  the  time  of 
the  first  explorations  got  himself  rejected  by  the  Maori 
women  not  because  he  appeared  without  clothing,  a 
178 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

state  which  custom  required,  but  because  he  appeared 
with  his  organ  unsheathed.  This  detail  shocked  them 
extremely.  A  curious  example  of  the  localization  of 
shame:  all  parts  of  the  body  could  and  should  show 
themselves,  all  save  this  small  surface.  On  reflection, 
the  modesty  of  Europeans  at  a  ball  or  on  the  beach  is 
almost  as  absurd  as  that  of  the  Maoris,  or  as  that  of  the 
fellaheen  women  who  at  the  approach  of  a  stranger  re- 
move their  shirts,  their  sole  garments,  in  order  to  cover 
their  faces. 

Sexual  modesty,  as  one  observes  it  today,  among  the 
most  various  peoples,  is  utterly  artificial.  Livingstone 
assures  us  that  he  developed  modesty  in  little  Kaffir 
girls  by  clothing  them.  Surprised  in  neglige,  they  covered 
their  breasts — and  this  in  a  race  where  the  women  go 
wholly  naked,  save  for  a  string  round  the  middle,  from 
which  another  string  hangs.  Clothing  is  only  one  of  the 
causes  of  modesty,  or  of  customs  which  give  us  the  illusion 
of  it,  and  the  sentiment  of  fear  associated  with  the  sexual 
act  does  not  explain  all  the  rest.  There  is  a  shame  par- 
ticular to  the  female,  an  ensemble  of  movements,  which 
one  can  assimilate  to  nothing,  which  one  can  attach  to 
nothing.  The  gesture  of  Venus  modest  is  not  purely  a 
woman's  gesture;  nearly  all  females,  especially  mam- 
mifers,  have  it;  the  female,  who  refuses,  lowers  her  tail 
and  clamps  it  between  her  legs ;  there  is  here,  evidently, 
the  origin  of  one  of  the  particular  forms  of  modesty. 
We  have  given  characteristic  examples  in  an  earlier 
chapter. 

Man  is  un-get-at-able;  the  slightest  of  his  habitual 
sentiments  has  multiple  and  contradictory  roots  in  a 
179 


THE  NATURAL 

sensibility  variable  and  always  excessive.  He  is  the  least 
poised  and  the  least  reasonable  of  all  animals,  although 
the  only  one  who  has  been  able  to  construct  for  him- 
self an  idea  of  reason;  he  is  an  animal  lunatic,  that  is  to 
say  one  who  flows  out  on  all  sides,  who  unravels  every- 
thing in  theory,  and  tangles  up  everything  in  fact,  who 
desires  and  wills  so  many  things,  who  throws  his  muscles 
into  so  many  divers  activities  that  his  acts  are  at  once 
the  most  sensible  and  the  most  absurd,  the  most  con- 
forming and  the  most  opposed  to  the  logical  development 
of  life.  But  he  profits  even  by  error,  especially  by  the 
error  fatal  to  all  animals,  and  that  constitutes  his  original- 
ity, as  Pascal  noted,  and  as  Nietzsche  repeats. 

If  the  word  modesty  (pudeur}  is  not  exact,  when 
applied  to  animals,  although  one  finds  in  their  habits 
the  distant  origin  of  this  complex  and  refined  sentiment, 
the  word  cruelty,  is  not  so  either,  when  applied  to  their 
natural  acts  of  defence  or  nutrition.  Human  cruelty  is 
often  an  aberration;  the  cruelty  of  beasts  is  a  necessity, 
a  normal  fact,  often  the  very  condition  of  their  existence. 
An  anarchist  philosopher,  ardent  and  naive  disciple  of 
Jean- Jacques  believed  that  he  traced  an  universal  altru- 
ism in  nature;  he  has  redone  with  other  words  and 
another  spirit,  and  a  few  new  examples,  the  infantile 
works  of  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  and  has  abused, 
under  pretext  of  inclining  mankind  to  kindness,  the  right 
which  one  has  to  promenade  about  nature  without  seeing 
and  without  understanding  her.  Nature  is  neither  good, 
nor  evil,  nor  altruist,  nor  egoist;  she  is  an  ensemble  of 
forces  whereof  none  cedes  save  under  superior  pressure. 
Her  conscience  is  that  of  a  balance;  being  of  a  perfect 
180 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

indifference,  it  is  of  an  absolute  equity.  But  the  sensi- 
bility of  a  balance  is  of  a  single  order,  single  dimension; 
the  sensibility  of  nature  is  infinite,  to  all  actions  and  re- 
actions. Whether  the  strong  devour  the  weak,  or  the 
weak  the  strong,  there  is  no  compensation  save  in  our 
human  illusion;  in  reality  one  life  is  enlarged  at  the  ex- 
pense of  another  life,  in  one  case  as  in  the  other,  the 
total  energy  has  been  neither  diminished  nor  augmented. 
There  is  neither  strong,  nor  weak,  there  is  a  level 
which  tends  to  remain  constant.  Our  sentimentalism 
makes  us  see  dramas  where  nothing  occurs  more  dis- 
turbing than  the  general  facts  of  nutrition.  One  may 
however  look  at  these  facts  a  little  more  closel>,  and 
then  the  parity  of  animal  organism  and  the  human  organ- 
ism will  lead  us  to  qualify  as  cruel,  certain  acts  which 
would  deserve  this  title  if  committed  by  man.  One  must 
say  cruelty  in  order  to  understand  it  oneself;  it  is  also 
necessary  to  remember  that  this  cruelty  is  unconscious, 
that  it  is  not  felt  by  the  devouring  animal,  that  no 
element  of  ill-will  enters  into  its  act,  and  that  man  him- 
self, the  judge,  in  no  way  deprives  himself  of  eating 
live  creatures  when  they  are  better  raw  than  cooked, 
living  than  dead. 

A  philanthe,  sort  of  wasp,  catches  a  bee  to  feed  its 
larvae;  while  carrying  the  prey  to  his  nest,  he  presses 
the  belly,  sucks  the  bee,  empties  it  of  all  its  honey.  But 
at  the  entrance  of  the  nest  a  mantis  is  waiting,  its  double- 
saw  pf  an  arm  is  unfolded,  the  philanthe  is  nipped  in 
passing.  And  one  sees  the  mantis  gnawing  the  belly  of 
the  philanthe  while  the  philanthe  continues  sucking  the 
bee's  belly.  And  the  mantis  is  so  voracious  that  you 
181 


THE  NATURAL 

can  cut  her  in  two  without  making  her  let  go;  a  chain, 
truly,  of  carnage. 

The  larvae  of  the  sphex,  another  wasp,  are  fed  on  live 
crickets  that  have  been  paralyzed  by  a  stab.  As  soon 
as  it  hatches  the  larva  attacks  the  cricket  in  the  belly  at 
the  chosen  spot  where  the  egg  has  been  layed.  The  poor 
insect  protests  by  feeble  movements  of  antennae,  and 
mandibles:  in  vain;  he  is  eaten  alive,  fibre  by  fibre,  by 
a  great  worm  which  gnaws  his  entrails,  and  with  so 
great  a  skill  that  it  begins  on  the  parts  not  essential  to 
life,  and  thus  keeps  the  prey  fresh  and  tasty  to  the  last. 
Such  is  the  gentleness  of  nature,  the  good  mother. 

The  carabes  are  fine  coleoptera,  violet,  purple,  and 
golden.  They  feed  only  on  living  prey,  which  they  chew 
slowly,  beginning  at  the  belly,  and  boring  slowly  into  the 
palpitating  cavity.  Helices,  and  slugs  are  thus  torn  apart 
by  bands  of  carabes  who  dig  them  up  and  dissect  them  in 
a  boiling  of  saliva. 

Such  are  theft  and  murder,  in  nature.  These  are  the 
normal  acts.  Herbivorous  species  alone  are  innocent 
perhaps  from  imbecility;  always  occupied  in  eating,  be- 
cause their  food  is  so  unsubstantial,  they  have  not  time 
to  develop  their  powers:  they  are  the  inevitable  prey,  a 
sort  of  superior  grass  which  will  be  browsed  at  the  first 
opportunity.  But  the  carnivora  are  in  the  same  way 
eaten  by  their  stronger  and  more  adroit  fellow-boarders. 
Very  few  beasts  have  a  quiet  death.  The  geotrupes, 
scarabs,  necrophores  their  work  finished,  the  egg-laying 
accomplished,  devour  each  other  to  pass  the  time,  per- 
haps, to  lend  a  little  gaiety  to  their  last  moments. 
Animals  are  of  but  two  sorts,  hunters  and  game,  but 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

there  is  scarcely  a  hunter  who  is  not  game  in  his  turn. 
One  does  not  find  in  nature  the  purely  human  invention 
of  breeding  for  slaughter,  or  the  more  extraordinary  one 
of  breeding  for  hunting.  Ants  know  how  to  milk  their 
cows,  the  plant-lice,  or  their  goats  the  staphylins;  they 
do  not  know  how  to  fatten  them  and  to  slit  their  gullets. 
A  hundred  other  signs  of  animal  cruelty  are  scattered 
through  this  book.  One  may  collect  many  others,  and 
this  might  form  a  work  edifying  in  this  era  of  sentimental- 
ism.  Not  because  one  wishes — quite  the  contrary — to 
offer  them  to  men  as  so  many  examples;  but  because  this 
might  teach  them  that  the  first  duty  of  a  living  being 
is  to  live,  and  that  all  life  is  nothing  but  a  sum  sufficient 
of  murders.  Men  or  tigers,  sphex  or  carabes  are  under 
the  same  necessity:  to  kill  or  to  die,  or  to  shed  blood  or 
eat  grass.  But  to  eat  grass,  is  not  much  better  than  sui- 
cide: ask  the  lambkins. 


183 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  XIX 

INSTINCT 

Instinct. — Can  one  oppose  it  to  intelligence? — Instinct 
in  man. — Primordiality  of  intelligence. — Instinct's  con- 
servative role. — Modifying  role  of  intelligence. — In- 
telligence and  consciousness. — Parity  of  animal  and 
human  instinct. — Mechanical  character  of  the  instinc- 
tive act. — Instinct  modified  by  intelligence. — Habit  of 
work  creates  useless  work. — Objections  to  the  identi- 
fication of  instinct  and  intelligence  taken  from  life  oj 
insects. 

THE  question  of  instinct  is  perhaps  the  most  nerve- 
racking  there  is.  Simple  minds  think  they  have  solved 
it  when  they  have  set  against  this  word  the  other  word: 
intelligence.  That  is  merely  the  elementary  position  of 
the  problem.  Not  only  does  it  explain  nothing,  but  it 
opposes  all  explanations.  If  instinct  and  intelligence  are 
not  phenomena  of  the  same  order,  reducible  one  to  the 
other,  the  problem  is  insoluble  and  we  will  never  know 
what  instinct  is,  nor  what  is  intelligence. 

In  the  vulgar  contrast  one  overhears  the  considerable 
naivete  that  animals  have  instinct  and  man,  intelligence. 
This  error,  pure  rhetoric,  has  prevented,  up  to  the  pres- 
ent, not  the  answer  to  the  question  which  still  seems  a 
long  way  off,  but  the  scientific  exposure  of  the  question 
itself.  It  includes  but  two  formulae:  Either  instinct  is  a 
fructification  of  intelligence;  or  intelligence  is  an  aug- 
184 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

mentation  of  instinct.  One  must  choose,  and  know  that 
in  choosing  one  makes,  as  the  case  may  be,  either  instinct 
or  intelligence,  the  seed  or  flower  of  a  single  plant:  the 
sensibility. 

One  will  first  establish  that  for  manifestations  of  in- 
stinct and  for  those  of  intelligence,  there  is  no  essential 
difference  between  man  and  animals.  The  life  of  all  men, 
quite  as  well  as  that  of  all  animals,  is  based  on  instinct, 
and  doubtless  there  is  no  animal  who  can  not  give  signs 
of  spontaneity,  that  is  to  say,  of  intelligence.  Instinct 
seems  anterior  because  in  all  animals  except  man  the 
quantity  and  especially  the  quality  of  instinctive  facts 
greatly  surpasses  the  value  and  number  of  intellectual 
facts.  This  is  so,  but  in  admitting  this  hierarchy,  if 
one  thereby  explain  with  considerable  difficulty,  the  for- 
mation of  intelligence  in  man  and  in  the  animals  which 
show  more  or  less  perceptible  gleams  of  it,  one  also  re- 
nounces by  so  doing,  all  later  attempts  that  might  fur- 
nish some  notions  as  to  the  formation  of  instinct.  If  the 
bee  makes  his  combs  mechanically,  if  this  act  is  as  neces- 
sary as  the  evaporation  of  warmed  water,  or  the  crystal- 
lization of  freezing  water,  it  is  useless  to  search  any 
further:  one  is  in  the  presence  of  a  fact  which  will  never 
yield  anything  else. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  one  consider  intelligence  as  an- 
terior, the  field  of  investigation  stretches  out  to  infinity 
and  instead  of  one  problem  radically  insoluble,  one  has  a 
hundred  thousand  or  more,  as  many  as  there  are  animal 
species,  and  of  these  problems  none  is  simple,  none 
absurd.  This  manner  of  looking  at  it,  brings,  I  admit, 
grave  consequences.  One  must  then  look  at  matter  as 
185 


THE  NATURAL 

a  simple  allotropic  form  of  intelligence,  or,  if  you  prefer, 
consider  intelligence  and  matter  as  equivalents,  and  admit 
that  intelligence  is  merely  matter  endowed  with  sensi- 
bility, and  that  its  power  of  extremely  diversifying  itself 
finds  impassable  limits  in  the  very  forms  which  clothe 
it.  Instinct  is  the  proof  of  these  limits.  When  acts  have 
become  instinctive,  they  have  become  invincible.  A 
specie  is  a  group  of  instincts  whose  tyranny  becomes,  one 
day,  deaf  to  all  attempts  at  movement.  Evolution  is 
limited  by  the  resistance  of  what  is,  striving  against  what 
might  be.  There  comes  a  moment  when  a  specie  is  a 
mass  too  heavy  to  be  moved  by  intelligence:  then  it 
remains  in  its  place;  this  is  death,  but  is  compensated  by 
the  steady  arrival  of  other  species;  new  forms  assumed 
by  the  inexhaustible  Proteus. 

One  will  add  nothing,  here,  to  this  theory,  save  a 
few  facts  favourable  to  it,  and  a  handful  of  objections. 

The  old  distinction  between  intelligence  and  instinct, 
although  false  and  superficial,  may  be  adapted  to  the 
views  just  abbreviated.  We  will  attribute  to  instinct  the 
series  of  acts  which  tend  to  conserve  the  present  condi- 
tion of  a  specie;  and  to  intelligence,  those  which  tend  to 
modify  that  condition.  Instinct  will  be  slavery,  sub- 
jection to  custom ;  intelligence  will  represent  liberty,  that 
is  to  say,  choice,  acts  which  while  being  necessary,  since 
they  occur,  have  yet  been  determined  by  an  ensemble 
of  causes  anterior  to  those  which  govern  instinct.  In- 
telligence will  be  the  deep,  the  reserve,  the  spring  which 
after  long  digging  emerges  between  the  rocks.  In  every- 
thing that  intelligence  suggests,  the  consciousness  of  the 
species  makes  a  departure;  what  is  useful  is  incorporated 
186 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

in  instinct,  enlarging  and  diversifying  it;  what  is  useless 
perishes — or  perhaps  flowers  in  extravagances,  as  it  does 
in  man,  in  dancing  and  gardening  birds,  or  the  magpies 
attracted  by  a  jewel,  larks  by  a  mirror!  One  will  then 
call  instinct,  the  series  of  useful  aptitudes;  intelligence, 
the  series  of  aptitudes  de  luxe:  but  what  is  useful,  what 
useless?  Who  will  dare  brand  a  series  of  bird  notes  or 
a  feminine  smile  as  lacking  utility?  There  is  neither 
utility  nor  inutility  unless  there  be  also  finality.  But 
finality  can  not  be  considered  as  an  aim;  it  is  nothing 
but  a  fact,  and  one  which  might  be  other. 

This  utilization  of  old  terms,  if  it  were  possible,  could 
never  be  the  pretext  for  a  new  radical  differentiation  be- 
tween instinct  and  intelligence;  one  could  only  use  it  to 
define  by  contrast  two  states  whose  manifestations  pre- 
sent appreciable  nuances.  The  great  objection  to  the 
essential  identification  of  instinct  and  intelligence  comes 
from  a  habit  of  mind  which  spiritistic  philosophy  has 
for  long  imposed  upon  us:  instinct  should  be  unconscious, 
intelligence,  conscious.  But  psychological  analysis  does 
not  permit  us  rigorously  to  tie  intellectual  activity  to 
consciousness.  Without  consciousness,  every  thing  might 
happen,  even  in  the  most  thoughtful  man,  exactly  as 
it  does  under  the  paternal  eye  of  this  consciousness.  In 
M.  Ribot's  interesting  analogic  comparison,  consciousness 
is  an  internal  candle  lighting  a  clock-face;  it  has  the 
same  influence  on  the  movement  of  the  intelligence  that 
this  candle  has  on  the  clock.  It  is  difficult  to  know 
whether  animals  have  consciousness,  and  it  is  perhaps 
useless,  unless  at  least,  one  admit  that  this  candle,  by  its 
luminous  or  calorific  rays,  does,  as  M.  Fouillee  teaches, 
187 


THE  NATURAL 

affect  the  march  of  the  mechanism.  In  sum,  con- 
sciousness also  is  a  fact,  and  no  fact  dies  without  con- 
sequences; there  are  neither  first  causes  nor  last  causes. 
In  any  case  one  will,  since  it  is  evident,  cling  to  one  state- 
ment that  even  if  consciousness  is  a  possible  reactive, 
intelligence  can  act  without  it:  the  most  conscious  of 
men  have  phases  of  unconscious  intellectuality;  long 
series  of  reasonable  acts  may  be  committed  without  their 
reflection  being  visible  in  the  mirror,  without  the  candle 
being  lit  before  the  clock.  In  brief,  it  does  not  seem  as 
if  nervous  matter  could  exist  without  intelligence  or 
sensibility;  but  consciousness  is  an  extra.  There  is  no 
need  to  take  count  of  the  old  scholastic  objection  to  the 
identification  of  the  intelligence  and  the  instinct. 

What  is  there  serious  in  the  other  objection:  that  man, 
if  he  once  had  instincts,  has  lost  them? 

The  animal  having  the  richest  instincts  ought  also  to 
have,  or  to  have  had,  the  richest  intelligence.  And 
reciprocally:  intellectual  activity  supposes  a  greatly 
varied  instinctive  activity,  either  in  the  present  or  in 
the  future.  If  man  have  not  instincts,  he  ought  to  be 
in  the  way  of  making  them.  He  has  numerous  instincts, 
and  makes  more  every  day:  a  part  of  his  consciousness 
is  constantly  crystallizing  itself  into  instinctive  acts. 

But  if  one  consider  the  different  instincts  of  animal 
species  one  will  scarcely  find  any  which  are  not  also 
human.  The  great  human  activities  are  instinctive. 
Doubtless  man  may  refrain  from  building  a  palace,  but  he 
can  not  dispense  with  a  cabin,  a  nest  in  a  cave,  or  in  the 
fork  of  a  tree,  like  the  great  apes,  many  mammals,  birds, 
and  most  insects.  His  food  depends  very  little  on 
188. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

choice,  it  must  contain  certain  indispensable  elements: 
a  necessity  identical  with  that  which  rules  the  animals, 
and  even  the  plants  whose  roots  reach  down  toward  the 
desired  juice,  and  whose  branches  reach  toward  the  light. 
Song,  dance,  strife,  and,  for  the  group,  war;  human 
instincts  are  not  unknown  to  all  animals.  The  taste  for 
brilliant  things,  another  human  instinct  is  frequent  enough 
in  birds;  it  is  true  that  birds  have  not  yet  made  anything 
of  it,  and  that  man  has  evolved  the  sumptuary  arts. 
There  remains  love,  but  I  think  this  supreme  instinct  is 
the  consecrated  limit  of  the  objections. 

Useful  acts  habitually  repeated  may  become  invincible, 
like  veritable  instinctive  movements.  A  hunter  x  spend- 
ing the  winter  in  an  isolated  cabin  in  Canada  engaged  an 
Indian  woman  to  keep  house  for  him.  She  arrives  in  the 
evening,  melts  the  snow,  begins  to  wash  up,  shifts  every- 
thing, prevents  his  getting  any  sleep.  He  rages.  Si- 
lence. As  soon  as  he  is  asleep,  the  woman  mechanically 
begins  to  work  again,  and  so  on,  until  the  humble  Indian 
gets  the  last  word.  Here,  exactly  as  among  insects,  one 
has  the  example  of  work  which  once  begun  must  go  on 
until  it  is  finished.  The  insect  can  not  be  interrupted; 
if  it  is  interrupted  by  external  cause  it  starts  work  again 
not  at  the  point  where  it  actually  finds  the  work,  but  at 
the  point  where  it,  the  insect,  left  off.  Thus,  one  entirely 
removed  the  nest  which  a  chalicodome  was  building  on  a 
shingle;  the  bee  returns,  finds  nothing,  since  there  is 
nothing  to  find,  but  instead  of  recommencing  the  building, 
continues  it.  There  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  close  the 
hole;  the  bee  closes  it,  that  is  to  say  she  deposits  the  last 

1  Vide  Milton  and  Cheaddle,  works  already  cited. 
I89 


THE  NATURAL 

mouthful  of  mortar  on  the  ideal  dome  of  an  absent  nest: 
then  with  instinct  satisfied,  sure  of  having  assured  her 
posterity,  she  retires,  she  goes  to  die.  One  can  get  the 
same  result  with  the  pelopee,  and  with  other  builders. 
Processional  caterpillars  are  accustomed  to  make  long 
trips  in  Indian  file  on  the  branches  of  their  native  pine- 
tree,  in  search  of  food:  if  one  place  them  on  the  rim 
of  a  basin  they  will  stupidly  circulate  for  thirty  hours, 
without  one  of  them  having  the  idea  of  interrupting  the 
circle  by  going  off  at  a  tangent.  They  will  die  in  their 
track,  stuck  fast  in  obedience;  when  one  falls  another 
steps  into  his  place,  the  ranks  close,  that  is  all.  Here  are 
the  extremities  of  instinct,  and  to  our  great  surprise  they 
are  almost  the  same  in  an  Indian  of  the  great  lakes  and 
in  a  processional  pine  caterpillar. 

But  other  cases  of  animal's  instinct  joining  with  free 
intelligence,  give  examples  of  human  sagacity.  We  have 
seen  these  same  mason  bees  and  xylocopes  and  domestic 
bees  profit  eagerly  by  a  nest  ready  made,  by  a  hole  bored 
in  wood,  by  artificial  combs  set  ready  to  take  their 
honey;  the  osmies,  who  lay  in  the  stalks  of  cut  reeds,  in 
which  they  arrange  a  series  of  chambers,  accommodated 
themselves  under  Fabre's  guidance  in  glass  tubes  which 
permitted  the  great  observer  to  know  them  intimately. 
Instinct  is  by  turns  as  stupid  as  a  machine  and  as  intelli- 
gent as  a  brain;  these  two  extremes  should  correspond 
with  very  ancient  and  very  recent  habits.  It  is  certainly 
but  a  relatively  short  time  since  the  peasant's  pruning- 
bill  began  preparing  cut  reeds  for  the  osmie;  before  that 
time  she  constructed  her  nest,  as  she  still  does,  in  empty 
snail  shells  or  in  some  natural  cavity.  They  are  very 
190 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

interesting  these  osmies,  extremely  active  solitary  bees; 
one  sees  them  having  exhausted  their  ovaries,  but  not 
their  muscular  force,  building  extra  nests,  provisioning 
them  with  honey,  without  having  laid  a  single  egg  in 
them ;  they  will  even  make  and  close  them  without  honey, 
if  they  do  not  find  more  flowers,  thus  showing  a  real  crazi- 
ness  for  work,  an  authentic  mania  analogous  to  that 
which  moves  man  to  move  pebbles,  to  smoke,  to  drink 
rather  than  remain  immobile.1  If  the  osmie  lived  longer, 
she  might  perhaps  invent  some  game  which,  vain  at  the 
start,  would  end  by  becoming  both  a  need  and  a  benefit 
to  the  whole  species. 

The  theory  which  makes  instinct  a  partial  crystallization 
of  intelligence  is  extremely  seductive:  I  dare  say  we  will 
have  to  accept  it  as  true.  Yet  the  contemplation  of  the 
insect  world  raises  an  enormous  objection.  In  the  course 
of  his  wonderful  memoirs  Fabre  has  formulated  it  ten 
times  and  with  always  fresh  ingenuity.  Here  is  the  insect, 
nearly  always  born  adult,  and  after  the  death  of  her 
parents,  she  has  received  from  them  neither  direct  educa- 
tion nor  education  by  example,  as  do  the  young  of  birds 
or  mammals.  A  hen  teaches  her  chick  to  scratch  for 
worms  (it  is  true  that  she  does  not  teach  her  ducklings 
to  dabble  in  puddles,  and  they  are  her  despair,  to  our 
amusement),  an  osmie  can  teach  its  young  nothing.  Yet 
now  osmies  do  exactly  what  their  ancients  have  done. 
The  insect  opens  its  shell,  brushes  its  antennae,  performs 
its  toilet,  opens  its  wings,  flies  off  for  life,  moves  without 

1  Compare   this  with   the  valuable   remarks   of  a  gamekeeper, 
"One  must  know  the  habits  of  animals,  even  their  manias,  for 
they  have  them,  just  as  we  do."    Figaro,  31,  Aug.  1903. 
191 


THE  NATURAL 

hesitation  toward  the  pasture  it  needs,  recognizes  and 
flees  the  enemies  of  its  race,  makes  love,  and  finally  con- 
structs a  nest  identical  with  the  cradle  from  which  it  has 
emerged.1 

One  sees  quite  well  that  the  acquisitions  of  the  indi- 
vidual have  passed  to  the  descendant,  but  how?  How 
have  they  fixed  themselves  in  the  nerves  and  blood  dur- 
ing a  few  short  days  of  life?  Without  any  apprentice- 
ship the  sphex  paralyzes  with  three  stabs  the  cricket  which 
is  to  feed  its  larvae;  if  the  cricket  is  killed  and  not  para- 
lyzed, the  larvae  will  die,  poisoned  by  the  carrion;  and 
if  the  paralysis  is  not  durable  the  cricket  will  come  to, 
and  destroy  the  sphex  in  the  egg.  The  manoeuvre  of  this 
wasp  and  of  many  other  killing  hymenoptera  has  this 
tiresome  point  for  our  reasoning,  the  act  must  be  perfect, 
on  pain  of  death.  Nevertheless  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  sphex  has  formed  itself  slowly,  like  all  complex  ani- 


1  To  my  mind  a  slight  unsoundness  creeps  into  Chap.  XVI,  and 
here  both  Fabre  and  Gourmont  seem  to  me  to  go  astray  in  con- 
sidering the  insect  as  a  separate  creature,  i.  e.  a  creature  cut  off 
from  its  larva  or  cocoon  life.  Surely  the  animal  may  be  sup- 
posed to  exist  while  in  its  cocoon  or  larva,  it  may  reasonably  be 
supposed  to  pass  that  period  in  reflection,  preparing  for  pre- 
cisely the  acts  of  its  desire  (as  for  example  an  intelligent  young 
man  might  pass  his  years  in  a  university  under  professors,  await- 
ing reasonable  maturity  to  act  or  express  his  objections).  The 
larva  has  its  months  of  quiet,  precisely  the  necessary  pre-reflec- 
tion  for  the  two  days'  joy-ride  of  exterior  manifestation,  amours, 
etc.,  its  contemplatio,  or  what  may  be  counted  as  analogous, 
passing  in  its  cell.  The  perfection  and  precision  of  its  acts, 
being,  let  us  say,  proportionate  to  the  non-expressive  period. 
Having  spent  God  knows  how  long  in  that  possibly  monotonous 
nest,  it  seems  small  wonder  that  the  insect  should  know  the 
pattern  by  heart.  Small  wonder,  that  is  to  say  wonder  not 
incommensurate  with  the  general  wonder  of  the  whole  process. 
— E.  P. 

IQ2 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

mals,  and  that  its  genius  is  only  the  sum  of  intellectual 
acquisition  slowly  crystallized  in  the  specie.1  As  for 
the  mechanism  of  this  transformation  of  intelligence  into 
instinct,  it  has  for  motive  the  principle  of  utility;  intelli- 
gent acts  which  are  useful  for  the  preservation  of  the 
specie,  are  the  only  ones  which  pass  into  instinct. 

The  science  of  these  hymenoptera  goes  so  far  that  it 
was  ahead  of  human  science  until  yesterday.  The  insect 
attacks  the  nervous  system;  it  knows  that  the  power  of 
beginning  a  movement  lies  in  the  nervous  system  and  not 
in  the  limbs.  If  the  nervous  system  is  centralized  as  in 
weevils,  their  enemy  the  cerceris  gives  only  one  dagger- 
stab;  if  the  movement  depends  on  three  ganglia,  it  gives 
three  stabs;  if  on  nine  ganglia,  nine:  thus  does  the  shaggy 
ammophile  when  it  needs  the  caterpillar  of  the  noctuelle, 
commonly  called  the  gray  worm,  for  its  larvae;  if  a 
single  sting  in  the  cervical  ganglion  appears  too  dangerous, 
the  hunter  limits  himself  to  chewing  it  gently,  in  order 
to  induce  the  necessary  degree  of  immobility.  It  is  odd 
that  the  social  hymenoptera  who  know  how  to  do  so 
many  difficult  things,  are  ignorant  of  this  savant  dagger- 
play.  The  bee  stings  at  random,  and  so  brutally  that 
she  mutilates  herself  while  often  inflicting  but  an  insig- 
nificant wound  on  her  adversary.  Collective  civilization 
has  diminished  the  individual  genius. 

1Vide  translator's  postscript. 


193 


THE  NATURAL 


CHAPTER  XX 

TYRANNY    OF    THE    NERVOUS    SYSTEM 

Accord  and  discord  between  organs  and  acts. — Tarses  and 
sacred  scarab. — The  hand  of  man. — Mediocre  fitness  of 
sexual  organs  for  copulation. — Origin  of  "luxuria." — 
The  animal  is  a  nervous  system  served  by  organs. — The 
organ  does  not  determine  the  aptitude. — Man's  hand 
inferior  to  his  genius. — Substitution  of  one  sense  for 
another. — Union  and  role  of  the  senses  in  love. — Man 
and  animal  under  the  tyranny  of  the  nervous  system. — 
Wear  and  tear  of  humanity  compensated  by  acquisi- 
tions.— Man's  inheritors. 

IT  is  a  universal  belief  that  nature  or  God,  in  their  wis- 
dom, have  made  the  corporal  organs  in  the  best  possible 
form:  perfection  of  the  eye,  of  the  hand,  of  the  paw-jaw 
of  the  mantis,  of  the  sexual  apparatus  of  man,  of  the 
bird  or  the  scarab,  the  furnishing  tarses  of  hymenoptera, 
the  beaver's  tail,  the  grasshopper's  hams,  the  cicada's 
tambourine.  It  is  sometimes  true  and  very  often  false. 
It  happens  that  there  appears  an  exact  concord  between 
the  organ  and  the  act  which  it  is  to  perform;  but  it 
happens  also,  and  that  not  rarely,  that  the  organs  seem 
in  no  way  fashioned  for  the  deed  they  must  accomplish: 
most  of  them  are  indeed  chance  tools,  with  which  the 
194 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

creature  manages,  as  he  can,  the  acts  which  he  wants  to, 
or  should,  do. 

The  forefeet  of  scarabs  are  so  little  destined  for  model- 
ling and  rolling  mud-balls  that  their  tarses  are  worn  out 
in  the  process,  as  human  fingers  would  perhaps  be  worn 
if  they  had  to  knead  the  raw  clay  and  mortar.  In  con- 
sidering the  scarab  one  has  to  think  of  a  humanity  lack- 
ing fingers,  having  lost  them  by  a  long  and  slow  diminu- 
tion of  nails,  bones,  flesh.  The  scarab  is  a  modeller, 
nothing  would  be  more  useful  to  him  than  fingers;  instead 
of  losing  them  by  use,  he  ought  to  have  grown  them 
longer  and  more  supple.  He  has  lost  them,  and  it  is 
with  the  arm  stumps  that  he  turns  the  little  balls  which 
are  to  be  food  for  himself  or  his  offspring.  This  insect 
is  condemned  to  a  labour  that  will  become  increasingly 
difficult  as  the  species  grows  increasingly  older.  It  re- 
mains to  know  whether  the  ancestors  of  the  sacred  scarab 
had  tarses.  Horus  Apollo  grants  them  as  many  fingers 
as  the  month  has  days,  that  is  thirty,  which  corresponds 
quite  well  with  the  six  feet  and  five  tarses  of  the  scarab. 
If  he  was  a  good  observer,  the  question  is  answered,  but 
a  single  testimony  is  insufficient,  and  moreover  it  is  un- 
likely that  so  great  a  wearing-away  would  have  occurred 
in  so  small  a  number  of  centuries.  Horus,  and  a  savant 
like  Latreille  himself,  have  been  the  dupes  of  symmetry; 
if  either  has  looked  closely  at  a  scarab,  and  if  he  has  seen 
the  forefeet  lacking  tarses,  he  has  put  this  down  to  chance 
or  to  accident.  Fabre  has  at  least  noted  one  indisputable 
fact,  it  is  that  neither  as  nymph  nor  adult  has  the  scarab 
tarses  on  his  forefeet.  If  it  ever  had  them,  our  reasoning 
draws  new  vigour  from  the  negation,  for  then  less  than 
195 


THE  NATURAL 

ever  is  it  possible  to  find  the  least  logical  concordance 
between  the  insect's  stumps  and  the  need  of  modelling 
and  turning  to  which  nature  condemns  it. 

This  scarab  is  a  type  to  which  one  can  relate  a  great 
number  of  other  examples:  purveyor  hymenoptera  are 
wholly  deprived  of  tools  adapted  to  their  work  as  quarry- 
men  and  well-diggers:  thus,  at  the  end  of  their  labours 
the  greater  part  of  these  fragile  insects  are  very  much 
damaged.  One  knows  the  beaver's  constructions,  but 
who  without  the  certitude  we  have  gained  by  observation, 
would  have  dared  to  attribute  them  to  these  great  rats? 

Eighteenth  century  philosophers  set  themselves  the 
question:  Is  man  man  because  he  has  hands;  or  has  he 
hands  because  he  is  man?  One  may  answer  boldly,  that 
man's  hands  marvellous  as  they  appear  to  us,  add  almost 
nothing  to  his  intelligence.  One  does  not  see  that  they 
are  indispensable  for  anything  save  for  playing  the  piano. 
What  constitutes  man  is  his  intelligence,  his  nervous 
system.  The  exterior  organ  is  secondary:  no  matter  what 
exterior  organ,  beak,  prehensile  tail,  teeth,  proboscis, 
paws  would  have  done  the  work  of  the  hands.  There  are 
birds'  nests  which  no  manual  cleverness  could  weave. 

The  reproductive  organs  are  no  better  adapted  to  their 
purpose  than  are  the  working  organs.  Doubtless  they 
attain  very  often  their  end,  but  at  the  cost  of  efforts 
which  a  better  disposition  would  have  attenuated  or  elim- 
inated altogether.  The  interior  mechanism  is,  or  seems, 
marvellous;  the  external  mechanism  is  rudimentary  and 
gives  no  result,  save,  as  they  say,  thanks  to  the  ever- 
renewed  ingenuity  of  the  couples.  Instinct,  in  one  of 
its  most  necessary  acts,  is  often  put  to  difficult  proof. 
196 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

The  plausible  adventure  of  Daphnis  has  been  presumably 
often  repeated,  even  though  the  limberness  of  the  human 
form  is  well  suited  to  coition;  but  who  has  not  been 
surprised  to  see  a  heavy  bull  leap  clumsily  onto  a  lowing 
cow,  bending  his  useless  hocks  along  her  back,  panting, 
and  often  not  succeeding  save  thanks  to  the  good  offices 
of  a  farm  hand?  Among  beavers,  says  A.  de  Quatrefages 
(Orbigny's  "Dictionnaire  d'histoire  naturelle"),  the  ex- 
ternal orifice  of  the  generative  organs  opens  in  a  cloaca 
so  placed  under  the  tail  that  one  hardly  understands  how 
the  coupling  takes  place. 

Certain  matings  are  sheer  tours  de  force,  and  the  ani- 
mal whether  it  be  the  scutillary,  a  tiny  insect,  or  the  ele- 
phant, a  colossus,  is  compelled  to  take  positions  abso- 
lutely different  from  its  normal  postures.  Nature  who 
firmly  intends  the  perpetuity  of  the  species,  has  not  yet 
found  a  simple  and  unique  means  thereto;  or  else,  having 
found  it,  in  budding,  she  has  cast  it  aside  to  adopt  the 
diversity  of  organs,  means,  and  movements.  There  are 
none,  even  to  those  of  our  own  specie  which  man  may 
not  criticize,  even  though  he  prize  them;  he  has  criticized, 
and  his  criticism  has  been  to  diversify  them  still  further, 
which  simplifies  a  fated  necessity  in  making  it  pleasanter. 
Morals  term  this  diversification  "luxure."  *  This  term  is 
a  pejorative  which  may  be  applied  also  to  the  exercise 
of  our  other  senses.  All  is  but  luxuria.  Luxuria,  the 
variety  of  foods,  their  cooking,  their  seasoning,  the  cul- 
ture of  special  garden  plants;  luxuria:  the  exercises  of 

'The  Latin  luxuria  and  French  luxure  have  no  exact  English 
equivalent;    our  "luxury,"  is  the  French  luxe;  the  phrase  "the 
exercise  of  pleasant  lusts"  is  perhaps  as  near  as  I  can  come  to 
a  definition  of  luxure. — Translator. 
197 


THE  NATURAL 

the  eye,  decoration,  the  toilet,  painting;  luxuria,  music; 
luxuria,  the  marvellous  exercises  of  the  hand,  so  marvel- 
lous that  direct  hand  work  can  be  mimicked  by  a  machine 
but  never  equalled;  luxuria,  flowers,  perfumes;  luxuria, 
rapid  voyages;  luxuria,  the  taste  for  landscape;  luxuria, 
all  art,  science,  civilization \luxuria,  also  the  diversity  of 
human  gestures,  for  the  animal  in  his  virtuous  sobriety 
has  but  one  gesture  for  each  sense,  and  that  gesture  un- 
varying; or  if  the  gesture,  as  probable,  undergoes  a 
change,  it  is  but  a  slow,  invisible  change,  and  there  is  at 
the  end  but  one  gesture.  The  animal  is  ignorant  of  di- 
versity, of  the  accumulation  of  aptitudes;  man  alone  is 
"luxurieux,"  is  libidinous. 

There  is  a  principle  which  I  will  call  the  individualism 
of  species.  Each  specie  is  an  individual  which  profits 
as  best  it  may,  for  its  useful  ends,  by  the  instruments 
which  have  devolved  to  it.  A  specie  of  hymenoptera 
feels  itself  obliged  to  protect  its  eggs  from  new  enemies, 
by  digging  holes  in  the  ground ;  it  makes  use  of  the  tools 
which  it  has,  without  taking  count  of  the  fact  that  these 
tools  have  not  been  made  for  excavation;  it  acts  thus  at 
pressure  of  necessity,  as  man  climbs  trees  in  a  flood,  or 
gets  onto  the  roof  in  case  of  fire.  The  need  is  independent 
of  the  organ;  it  precedes  it,  and  does  not  always  create 
it.  In  the  sexual  act,  need  commands  the  gesture:  the 
animal  adapts  itself  to  positions  which  are  strange  to  it, 
and  very  difficult.  Coupling  is  nearly  always  a  grimace. 
One  would  say  that  nature  has  set  the  male  organ  here, 
and  the  female  there,  and  left  to  specific  ingenuity  the 
care  of  effecting  the  junction. 

It  is,  I  think,  permitted  us  to  conclude  from  the  medi- 
198 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

ocre  fitness  of  animals  to  milieu,  and  of  organs  to  acts, 
that  it  is  not  the  milieu  which  absolutely  fashions,  or  the 
organs  which  absolutely  govern,  the  acts.  One  then  feels 
oneself  inclined  to  reaccept  Bonald's  definition  of  man, 
and  even  to  find  it  admirable,  just,  and  strict:  An  intel- 
ligence served  by  organs.  Not  "obeyed,"  not  always,  but 
served,  service  implying  imperfection,  a  discord  between 
the  order  and  its  fulfillment.  But  the  phrase  applies  not 
to  man  only,  and  its  spiritualistic  origin  in  no  way 
diminishes  its  aphoristic  value;  it  qualifies  every  animal. 
The  animal  is  a  nervous  centre,  served  by  the  different 
tools  in  which  its  branches  terminate.  It  commands,  and 
the  tools,  good  or  bad  ones,  obey.  If  they  were  incapable 
of  performing  their  work,  at  least  the  essential  parts  of 
it,  the  animal  would  perish.  There  are  forms  of  parasitism 
which  seem  to  be  the  consequence  of  a  general  renuncia- 
tion of  organs;  impotent  to  enter  into  direct  relations 
with  the  outer  world,  unmanned  by  the  softness  of  the 
muscles,  the  nervous  system  brings  the  skiff  it  was  pilot- 
ing into  some  harbour  or  other,  and  beaches  it. 

Fabre  says,  thinking  particularly  of  insects:  "The  or- 
gan does  not  determine  the  aptitude."  And  this  most 
aptly  confirms  Bonald's  manner  of  seeing.  Thrown  in 
at  the  end  of  a  chapter,  with  scarcely  anything  directly 
to  justify  it,  this  affirmation  but  gains  in  value.  It  is 
the  conclusion,  not  of  a  dissertation,  but  of  a  long  se- 
quence of  scientific  observations.  As  for  the  facts  that 
one  can  set  inside  it,  they  are  innumerable;  one  would 
group  them  under  two  heads:  The  animal  serves  himself 
as  best  he  can  with  the  organs  he  possesses;  he  does  not 
always  make  use  of  them.  The  flying-stag,  the  best 
199 


THE  NATURAL 

armed  of  all  our  insects,  is  inoffensive;  while  the  carabe, 
of  peaceful  appearance,  is  a  formidable  beast  of  prey. 
Apropos  of  the  pill  in  which  the  scarab  shuts  its  egg,  the 
skill  with  which  it  is  worked  up  and  felted,  in  a  dark 
hole  by  a  stump-armed  insect,  Fabre  says  simply:  "It 
gave  me  the  idea  of  an  elephant  wanting  to  make  lace." 
But  in  what  insect  will  we  see  perfect  accord  of  work  and 
organ?  In  the  bee?  It  would  scarcely  seem  so.  The  bee 
uses  for  building,  modelling,  waxing,  bottling  honey,  ex- 
actly the  same  organs  that  her  sisters,  the  ammophile, 
bembex,  sphex,  ant,  chalicodome,  use  for  hollowing  earth, 
excavating  sand,  making  cellars,  mud  houses.  The 
libellule  does  nothing  with  the  hooks  which  render  the 
termite  dangerous,  and  she  loafs,  while  her  industrious 
brother,  also  nevroptera  and  nothing  more,  builds  Hima- 
layas. 

The  mole-cricket  is  so  well  organized  for  digging  with 
her  short  powerful  bow  legs  that  she  could  cut  sandstone: 
she  frequents  only  the  soft  soil  of  gardens.  The  anto- 
phore,  on  the  other  hand,  with  no  instruments  save  her 
mediocre  mandibles,  her  velvet  paws,  forces  the  cement 
which  holds  the  stone  walls  together,  and  bores  the  hard- 
ened earth  of  the  slopes  by  the  roadside. 

Insects,  like  man,  moreover,  ask  nothing  better  than 
to  do  nothing  and  to  let  their  tools  sleep;  the  xylocope, 
that  fine  violet  bumble-bee,  who  ought  to  bore  into  wood, 
a  gallery  twice  a  hand's  length  wherein  to  lay  her  eggs, 
if  she  finds  a  suitable  hole  ready  made,  confines  herself 
to  the  meagerest  possible  works  of  accommodation.  In 
sum,  the  insects  who  like  the  saw-fly  (tenthredes)  use  a 
precise  instrument  for  a  precise  job,  are  almost  rare. 
200 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

Man's  hand,  to  come  back  to  this  point,  is  useful  to 
him  because  he  is  intelligent.    In  itself  the  hand  is  noth- 
ing.   Proof,  in  the  monkeys  and  rodents  who  use  their 
hands  only  to  climb  trees,  louse  themselves,  and  crack 
nuts.    Our  five  fingers!     Really  nothing  is  more  broad- 
cast in  nature,  where  they  are  only  a  sign  of  age:  the 
saurians  have  them,  and  are  not  a  bit  more  clever  thereby. 
It  is  without  fingers,  without  hands,  without  members  that 
the  larvae  of  insects  construct  for  themselves  marvellous 
mosaic  shells,  weave  themselves  tents  in  silk-floss,  exer- 
cise the  trades  of  plasterer,  miner,  and  carpenter.    But 
this  hand  of  man,  become  the  world's  marvel,  how  inferior 
to  his  genius,  and  how  he  has  had  to  lengthen  it,  refine 
it,  complicate  it,  in  order  to  obtain  obedience  to  the  in- 
creasingly precise  orders  of  his  intelligence.     Has  the 
hand  created  machines?    Man's  intelligence  immeasure- 
ably  surpasses  his  organs,  and  submerges  them;  it  de- 
mands of  them  the  impossible  and  the  absurd:  hence  the 
railway,  the  telegraph,  the  microscope  and  everything 
which  multiplies  the  power  of  organs  which  have  become 
rudimentary  in  the  face  of  the  brains'  exigence,  the  brain 
being  our  master,  who  has  demanded  also  of  the  sexual 
organs  more  than  they  were  able  to  give:  it  is  to  satisfy 
these  orders  that  the  bed  of  love  has  been  scattered  with 
so  many  dreams  and  rose-leaves. 

It  is  difficult  to  make  people  understand  that  the  eye 
sees,  not  because  it  is  an  eye,  but  because  it  is  situated 
at  the  tip  of  some  filaments  of  nerve  which  are  sensitive 
tc  light.  At  the  end  of  filaments  sensitive  to  sound,  the 
eye  would  hear.  Doubtless  it  is  adapted  to  its  function, 
as  the  ear  is  to  hearing,  but  this  function  is  an  effect, 
201 


THE  NATURAL 

not  a  cause.  Insects'  eyes  are  very  different  from  ours. 
One  has  spoken  of  the  experiments  of  a  German  savant 
who  wished  to  throw  visual  images  on  the  brain  without 
the  eye's  intervention.  This  is  suspicious,  but  not  ab- 
surd: insects  are  gifted  certainly  with  the  power  to  smell, 
but  one  has  never  been  able  to  discover  the  organ  in 
any  single  one  of  them;  and,  also,  the  role  of  the  anten- 
nae which  seems  very  considerable  in  their  life,  remains 
very  obscure,  since  the  removal  of  these  appendices  has 
not  always  a  measurable  effect  on  their  activity.1 

Organs,  evidently  the  most  useful,  are  sometimes  placed 
in  a  position  which  diminishes  their  value.  Notice  a 
resting  horse,  and  another  horse  coming  toward  him  (ob- 
servation can  be  made  quite  easily  in  the  streets  of 
Paris),  what  is  he  to  do  to  gauge  the  danger,  and  re- 
connoitre the  movement?  Look  at  the  other  horse?  No. 
His  eyes  are  made  to  look  sideways,  not  forward.  He 
uses  his  long  ears,  raises  them,  shifts  their  open  side  to- 
ward the  noise.  Reassured  he  lets  them  fall,  and  re- 
establishes his  calm.  The  horse  looks  with  his  ears. 
The  blinkers  by  which  people  pretend  to  make  him  look 
forward,  merely  blind  him,  and  perhaps,  thereby  diminish 
his  impressionability.  Blind  horses  moreover  do  the  same 
work  as  the  others. 

The  senses,  as  one  knows,  are  substitutable  one  for 
the  other,  in  a  certain  degree;  but  in  the  normal  state 
they  seem  rather  to  reinforce  each  other  mutually,  and 
lend  each  other  a  certain  support.  One  does  not  shut  the 
eyes  to  hear  better,  save  when  one  has  determined  the 

1Fabre's  experiments  on  mason  bees,  the  shaggy  ammophile, 
and  great-peacock  moth. 

202 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

source  of  the  sound.  And  even  then,  is  it  to  hear  better? 
Is  it  not  rather  to  reflect  and  to  hear  at  the  same  time, 
to  manage  an  interior  concentration  with  which  the  eye, 
essentially  an  explorative  organ,  would  interfere? 

It  is  in  love  that  this  alliance  of  all  the  senses  is  most 
intimately  exercised.  In  superior  animals,  as  well  as  in 
man,  each  sense,  together  or  in  groups,  comes  to  reinforce 
the  genital  sense.  None  remain  inactive,  eye,  ear,  scent, 
touch,  even  taste  come  into  play.  Thus  one  explains  the 
gleam  of  plumage,  the  dance,  song,  sexual  odours.  The 
female  eye,  in  birds,  is  more  sensitive  than  the  male  eye; 
the  contrary  is  true  of  humanity;  but  female  birds  and 
women  are  particularly  moved  by  song  or  words.  The 
two  sexes  in  dogs  have,  equally,  recourse  to  scent;  sight 
seems  to  play  but  an  insignificant  role  in  their  sexual 
access,  since  minuscule  canine  beasts  do  not  fear  to  ad- 
dress themselves  to  monsters,  which  for  man  would  be 
in  proportion  more  than  that  of  a  mammoth.  Insects 
before  mating  often  caress  each  other  with  their  mysteri- 
ous antennae;  the  male  is  sometimes  given  a  sounding 
apparatus:  cricket  and  grasshopper  drum  to  charm  their 
companions. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  explain  how  in  humans,  especially 
in  the  male,  all  the  senses  concur  in  the  amour,  at  least 
when  moral  and  religious  prejudices  do  not  stop  their 
impetus.  It  should  be  so,  in  an  animal  so  sensitive,  and 
of  so  complex  and  multiple  a  sensibility.  The  abstention 
of  a  single  sense  from  the  coupling  is  enough  to  enfeeble 
the  pleasure  very  greatly.  The  coldness  of  many  wo- 
men may  proceed  less  from  a  diminution  of  their  genital 
sense,  than  from  the  general  mediocrity  of  their 
203 


THE  NATURAL 

Intelligence,  being  but  the  ripe  fruit  of  the  general  sensi- 
bility, its  intensity  is  very  often  found  to  be  in  a  certain 
relation  with  the  sexual  sensibility.  Absolute  coldness 
might  signify  stupidity.  There  are,  however,  too  many 
exceptions  for  one  to  generalize  in  this  matter.  It  hap- 
pens indeed  that  intelligence  instead  of  being  the  sum 
total  of  the  sensibility,  is,  so  to  speak,  the  deviation  or 
transmutation.  There  remains  very  little  sensibility; 
it  is  nearly  all  turned  into  intelligence. 

Every  organized  animal  has  a  master:  its  nervous  sys- 
tem; and  there  is,  doubtless,  no  real  life  save  where  a 
nervous  system  exists,  be  it  the  magnificent  infinitely 
branching  tree  of  mammals  and  birds,  be  it  the  double, 
knotted  cord  of  the  mollusks,  or  the  nail  head  which  is 
planted,  in  ascides,  between  the  buccal  and  anal  orifice. 
As  soon  as  this  new  matter  appears,  it  reigns  despoti- 
cally, and  the  unforeseen  appears  in  the  world.  One 
would  say  a  conqueror,  or  rather  an  intruder,  a  parasite 
come  in  by  stealth,  and  lifting  itself  into  the  royal  role. 

Animals  bear  this  tyranny  better  than  man.  Their 
master  asks  fewer  things.  Often  it  only  asks  one:  to 
create  a  being  in  its  exact  likeness.  The  animal  is  sane, 
that  is  to  say,  ruled;  man  is  mad,  that  is  to  say,  out  of 
rule:  he  has  so  many  orders  to  execute  at  once,  that  he 
scarcely  does  any  one  well.  In  civilized  countries  he 
can  hardly  reproduce  himself  and  the  specie  is  in  danger. 
It  would  disappear,  if  the  means  of  protecting  it  did  not 
compensate  the  sterility. 

One  can  not  say  that  humanity  has  attained  its  in- 
tellectual limits,  although  its  physical  evolution  seems 
completed;  but  as  superior  human  specimens  are  nearly 
204 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

always  sterile,  or  capable  of  only  mediocre  posterity,  it 
is  found  that,  alone  among  values,  intelligence  is  not 
transmitted  by  generation.  Then  the  circle  closes  and 
the  same  effort  ends  ceaselessly  in  the  same  recommence- 
ment. However,  even  here,  artificial  means  intervene,  and 
the  transmission  of  the  acquisitions  of  intelligence  is  rela- 
tively assured  by  all  sorts  of  instruments.  This  mech- 
anism, much  inferior  to  carnal  generation,  permits  us, 
if  the  most  exquisite  forms  of  intelligence  disappear  as 
fast  as  they  flower,  to  preserve  at  least  part  of  their 
contents.  Notions  are  transmitted,  that  is  a  result,  even 
though  most  of  them  are  vain,  in  default  of  sensibilities 
sufficiently  powerful  to  assimilate  them  and  make  a  real 
life  of  them. 

Finally,  if  man  ought  to  abdicate,  which  seems  unlikely, 
animality  is  rich  enough  to  raise  up  an  inheritor.  The 
candidates  for  humanity  are  in  great  number,  and  they 
are  not  those  whom  the  crowd  supposes.  Who  knows  if 
our  descendants  may  not  some  day  find  themselves  faced 
with  a  rival,  strong  and  in  the  flower  of  youth.  Creation 
has  not  gone  on  strike,  since  man  appeared:  since  making 
this  monster,  nature  has  continued  her  work:  the  human 
hazard  might  reproduce  itself  on  the  morrow. 


205 


THE  NATURAL 


TRANSLATOR'S  POSTSCRIPT 

"II  y  aurait  peut-etre  une  certain  correlation  entre  la  copula- 
tion complete  et  profonde  et  le  deVeloppement  cerebral." 

NOT  only  is  this  suggestion,  made  by  our  author  at 
the  end  of  his  eighth  chapter,  both  possible  and  probable, 
but  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  brain  itself,  is,  in 
origin  and  development,  only  a  sort  of  great  clot  of  genital 
fluid  held  in  suspense  or  reserve;  at  first  over  the  cervical 
ganglion,  or,  earlier  or  in  other  species,  held  in  several 
clots  over  the  scattered  chief  nerve  centres;  and  augment- 
ing in  varying  speeds  and  quantities  into  medulla  oblon- 
gata,  cerebellum  and  cerebrum.  This  hypothesis  would 
perhaps  explain  a  certain  number  of  as  yet  uncorrelated 
phenomena  both  psychological  and  physiological.  It 
•  would  explain  the  enormous  content  of  the  brain  as  a 
maker  or  presenter  of  images.  Species  would  have  de- 
veloped in  accordance  with,  or  their  development  would 
have  been  affected  by,  the  relative  discharge  and  reten- 
tion of  the  fluid;  this  proportion  being  both  a  matter  of 
quantity  and  of  quality,  some  animals  profiting  hardly 
at  all  by  the  alluvial  Nile-flood;  the  baboon  retaining 
nothing;  men  apparently  stupefying  themselves  in  some 
cases  by  excess,  and  in  other  cases  discharging  apparently 
only  a  surplus  at  high  pressure;  the  gateux,  or  the  genius, 
the  "strong-minded." 

I  offer  an  idea  rather  than  an  argument,  yet  if  we  con- 
206 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

sider  that  the  power  of  the  spermatozoide  is  precisely  the 
power  of  exteriorizing  a  form;  and  if  we  consider  the  lack 
of  any  other  known  substance  in  nature  capable  of  grow- 
ing into  brain,  we  are  left  with  only  one  surprise,  or 
rather  one  conclusion,  namely,  in  face  of  the  smallness 
of  the  average  brain's  activity,  we  must  conclude  that 
the  spermatozoic  substance  must  have  greatly  atrophied 
in  its  change  from  lactic  to  coagulated  and  hereditarily 
coagulated  condition.  Given,  that  is,  two  great  seas  of 
this  fluid,  mutually  magnetized,  the  wonder  is,  or  at  least 
the  first  wonder  is,  that  human  thought  is  so  inactive. 

Chemical  research  may  have  something  to  say  on  the 
subject,  if  it  be  directed  to  comparison  of  brain  and 
spermatophore  in  the  nautilus,  to  the  viscous  binding  of 
the  bee's  fecundative  liquid.  I  offer  only  reflections,  per- 
haps a  few  data.  Indications  of  earlier  adumbrations  of 
an  idea  which  really  surprises  no  one,  but  seems  as  if  it 
might  have  been  lying  on  the  study  table  of  any  physician 
or  philosopher. 

There  are  traces  of  it  in  the  symbolism  of  phallic  reli- 
gions, man  really  the  phallus  or  spermatozoide  charging, 
head-on,  the  female  chaos.  Integration  of  the  male  in 
the  male  organ.  Even  oneself  has  felt  it,  driving  any 
new  idea  into  the  great  passive  vulva  of  London,  a  sen- 
sation analogous  to  the  male  feeling  in  copulation. 

Without  any  digression  on  feminism,  taking  merely 
the  division  Gourmont  has  given  (Aristotelian,  if  you 
like),  one  offers  woman  as  the  accumulation  of  heredi- 
tary aptitudes,  better  than  man  in  the  "useful  gestures," 
the  perfections;  but  to  man,  given  what  we  have  of  his- 
tory, tl*e  "inventions,"  the  new  gestures,  the  extrava- 
207 


THE  NATURAL 

gance,  the  wild  shots,  the  impractical,  merely  because  in 
him  occurs  the  new  up-jut,  the  new  bathing  of  the  cere- 
bral tissues  hi  the  residuum,  in  la  mousse  of  the  life  sap. 

Or,  as  I  am  certainly  neither  writing  an  anti-feminist 
tract,  nor  claiming  disproportionate  privilege  for  the 
spermatozoide,  for  the  sake  of  symmetry  ascribe  a  cog- 
nate role  to  the  ovule,  though  I  can  hardly  be  expected 
to  introspect  it.  A  flood  is  as  bad  as  a  famine;  the 
ovular  bath  could  still  account  for  the  refreshment  of 
the  female  mind,  and  the  recharging,  regracing  of  its 
"traditional  aptitudes;"  where  one  woman  appears  to 
benefit  by  an  alluvial  clarifying,  ten  dozen  appear  to  be 
swamped. 

"  Postulating  that  the  cerebral  fluid  tried  all  sorts  of 
!  experiments,  and,  striking  matter,  forced  it  into  all  sorts 
of  forms,  by  gushes;  we  have  admittedly  in  insect  life  a 
female  predominance;  in  t>ird,  mammal  and  human,  at 
least  an  increasing  male  prominence.  And  these  four 
important  branches  of  "the  fan"  may  be  differentiated 
according  to  their  apparent  chief  desire,  or  source  of 
choosing  their  species. 

Insect,  utility;  bird,  flight;  mammal,  muscular  splen- 
dour; man,  experiment. 

The  insect  representing  the  female,  and  utility;  the 
need  of  heat  being  present,  the  insect  chooses  to  solve 
the  problem  by  hibernation,  i.e.,  a  sort  of  negation  of 
action.  The  bird  wanting  continuous  freedom,  feathers 
itself.  Desire  for  decoration  appears  in  all  the  branches, 
man  exteriorizing  it  most.  The  bat's  secret  appears  to 
be  that  he  is  not  the  bird-mammal,  but  the  mammal- 
insect:  economy  of  tissue,  hibernation.  The  female  prin- 
208 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

ciple  being  not  only  utility,  but  extreme  economy,  woman, 
falling  by  this  division  into  a  male  branch,  is  the  least 
female  of  females,  and  at  this  point  one  escapes  from  a 
journalistic  sex-squabble  into  the  opposition  of  two  prin- 
ciples, utlfity  and  a  sort  of  venturesomeness. 

In  its  subservience  to  the  money  fetish  our  age  returns 
to  the  darkness  of  medievalism.  Two  osmies  may  make 
superfluous  egg-less  nests,  but  do  not  kill  each  other  in 
contesting  which  shall  deposit  the  supererogatory  honey 
therein.  It  is  perhaps  no  more  foolish  to  go  at  a  her- 
mit's bidding  to  recover  an  old  sepulchre  than  to  make 
new  sepulchres  at  the  bidding  of  finance. 

In  his  growing  subservience  to,  and  adoration  of,  and 
entanglement  in  machines,  in  utility,  man  rounds  the 
circle  almost  into  insect  life,  the  absence  of  flesh;  and 
may  have  need  even  of  horned  gods  to  save  him,  or. at 
least  of  a  form  of  thought  which  permits  them. 

Take  it  that  usual  thought  is  a  sort  of  shaking  or  shift- 
ing of  a  fluid  in  the  viscous  cells  of  the  brain;  one  has 
seen  electricity  stripping  the  particles  of  silver  from  a 
plated  knife  in  a  chemical  bath,  with  order  and  celerity, 
and  gathering  them  on  the  other  pole  of  a  magnet.  Take 
it  as  materially  as  you  like.  There  is  a  sort  of  spirit- 
level  in  the  ear,  giving  us  our  sense  of  balance.  And 
dreams?  Do  they  not  happen  precisely  at  the  moments 
when  one  has  tipped  the  head;  are  they  not,  with  their 
incoherent  mixing  of  known  and  familiar  images,  like  the 
pouring  of  a  complicated  honeycomb  tilted  from  its 
perpendicular?  Does  not  this  give  precisely  the  needed 
mixture  of  familiar  forms  in  non-sequence,  the  jumble 
of  fragments  each  coherent  within  its  own  limit? 
209 


THE  NATURAL 

And  from  the  popular  speech,  is  not  the  sensible  man 
called  "level-headed,"  has  he  not  his  "head  well  screwed 
on"  or  "screwed  on  straight;"  and  are  not  lunatics  and 
cranks  often  recognizable  from  some  peculiar  carriage 
or  tilt  of  the  head-piece;  and  is  not  the  thinker  always 
pictured  with  his  head  bowed  into  his  hand,  yes,  but 
level  so  far  as  left  to  right  is  concerned?  The  upward- 
"  jaw,  head-back  pose  has  long  been  explained  by  the  rela- 
tive positions  of  the  medulla  and  the  more  human  parts 
of  the  brain;  this  need  not  be  dragged  in  here;  nor  do 
I  mean  to  assert  that  you  can  cure  a  lunatic  merely  by 
holding  his  head  level. 

Thought  is  a  chemical  process,  the  most  interesting  of 
all  transfusions  in  liquid  solution.  The  mind  is  an  up- 
spurt  of  sperm,  no,  let  me  alter  that;  trying  to  watch  the 
process:  the  sperm,  the  form-creator,  the  substance  which 
compels  the  ovule  to  evolve  in  a  given  pattern,  one  mi- 
croscopic, minuscule  particle,  entering  the  "castle"  of 
the  ovule. 

"Thought  is  a  vegetable"  says  a  modern  hermetic, 
whom  I  have  often  contradicted,  but  whom  I  do  not  wish 
to  contradict  at  this  point.  Thought  is  a  "chemical 
process"  in  relation  to  the  organ,  the  brain;  creative 
thought  is  an  act  like  fecundation,  like  the  male  cast  of 
the  human  seed,  but  given  that  cast,  that  ejaculation,  I 
am  perfectly  willing  to  grant  that  the  thought  once  born, 
separated,  in  regard  to  itself,  not  in  relation  to  the  brain 
that  begat  it,  does  lead  an  independent  life  much  like  a 
member  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  blowing  seeds,  ideas 
from  the  paradisal  garden  at  the  summit  of  Dante's 
Mount  Purgatory,  capable  of  lodging  and  sprouting 
210 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

where  they  fall.  And  Gourmont  has  the  phrase  "fecun- 
dating a  generation  of  bodies  as  genius  fecundates  a 
generation  of  minds." 

Man  is  the  sum  of  the  animals,  the  sum  of  their  in- 
stincts, as  Gourmont  has  repeated  in  the  course  of  his 
book.  Given,  first  a  few,  then  as  we  get  to  our  own  con- 
dition, a  mass  of  these  spermatozoic  particles  withheld,- 
in  suspense,  waiting  in  the  organ  that  has  been  built 
up  through  ages  by  a  myriad  similar  waitings. 

Each  of  these  particles  is,  we  need  not  say,  conscious 
of  form,  but  has  by  all  counts  a  capacity  for  formal 
expression:  is  not  thought  precisely  a  form-comparing 
and  form-combining? 

That  is  to  say  we  have  the  hair-thinning  "abstract 
thought"  and  we  have  the  concrete  thought  of  women, 
of  artists,  of  musicians,  the  mockedly  "long-haired,"  who 
have  made  everything  in  the  world.  We  have  the  form-  v 
making  and  the  form-destroying  "thought,"  only  the 
first  of  which  is  really  satisfactory.  I  don't  wish  to  be 
invidious,  it  is  perfectly  possible  to  consider  the  "ab- 
stract" thought,  reason,  etc.,  as  the  comparison,  regimen- 
tation, and  least  common  denominator  of  a  multitude  of 
images,  but  in  the  end  each  of  the  images  is  a  little  spoiled 
thereby,  no  one  of  them  is  the  Apollo,  and  the  makers  of 
this  kind  of  thought  have  been  called  dry-as-dust  since 
the  beginning  of  history.  The  regiment  is  less  interesting 
as  a  whole  than  any  individual  in  it.  And,  as  we  are 
being  extremely  material  and  physical  and  animal,  in  the 
wake  of  our  author,  we  will  leave  old  wives'  gibes  about 
the  profusion  of  hair,  and  its  chance  possible  indication 
211 


THE  NATURAL 

or  sanction  of  a  possible  neighbouring  health  beneath  the 
skull. 

Creative  thought  has  manifested  itself  in  images,  in 
music,  which  is  to  sound  what  the  concrete  image  is  to 
sight.  And  the  thought  of  genius,  even  of  the  mathemati- 
cal genius,  the  mathematical  prodigy,  is  really  the  same 
sort  of  thing,  it  is  a  sudden  out-spurt  of  mind  which  takes 
the  form  demanded  by  the  problem;  which  creates  the 
answer,  and  baffles  the  man  counting  on  the  abacus. 

I  query  the  remarks  about  the  sphex  in  Chapter  XIX, 
"que  le  sphex  s'est  forme  lentement,"  I  query  this  with  a 
conviction  for  which  anyone  is  at  liberty  to  call  me 
lunatic,  and  for  which  I  offer  no  better  ground  than 
simple  introspection.  I  believe,  and  on  no  better  ground 
than  that  of  a  sudden  emotion,  that  the  change  of  species 
is  not  a  slow  matter,  managed  by  cross-breeding,  of 
nature's  leporides  and  bardots,  I  believe  that  the  species 
changes  as  suddenly  as  a  man  makes  a  song  or  a  poem, 
or  as  suddenly  as  he  starts  making  them,  more  suddenly 
than  he  can  cut  a  statue  in  stone,  at  most  as  slowly  as 
a  locust  or  long-tailed  Sirmione  false  mosquito  emerges 
from  its  outgrown  skin.  It  is  not  even  proved  that  man 
is  at  the  end  of  his  physical  changes.  Say  that  the  di- 
versification of  species  has  passed  its  most  sensational 
phases,  say  that  it  had  once  a  great  stimulus  from  the 
rapidity  of  the  earth's  cooling,  if  one  accepts  the  geolo- 
gists' interpretation  of  that  thermometric  cyclone. 

The  cooling  planet  contracts,  it  is  as  if  one  had  some 
mud  in  a  tin  pail,  and  forced  down  the  lid  with  such  pres- 
sure that  the  can  sprung  a  dozen  leaks,  or  it  is  as  if  one 
had  the  mud  in  a  linen  bag  and  squeezed;  merely  as 
212 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

mechanics  (not  counting  that  one  has  all  the  known  and 
unknown  chemical  elements  cooling  simultaneously),  but 
merely  as  mechanics  this  contraction  gives  energy  enough 
to  squeeze  vegetation  through  the  pores  of  the  imaginary 
linen  and  to  detach  certain  particles,  leaving  them  still 
a  momentum.  A  body  should  cool  with  decreasing 
speed  in  measure  as  it  approaches  the  temperature  of  its 
surroundings;  however,  the  earth  is  still,  I  think,  sup- 
posed to  be  warmer  than  the  surrounding  unknown,  and 
is  presumably  still  cooling,  or  at  any  rate  it  is  not  proved 
that  man  is  at  the  end  of  his  physical  changes.  I  return 
to  horned  gods  and  the  halo  in  a  few  paragraphs.  It  is 
not  proved  that  even  the  sort  of  impetus  provided  by  a 
shrinking  of  planetary  surface  is  denied  one. 

What  is  known  is  that  man's  great  divergence  has  been 
in  the  making  of  detached,  resumable  tools. 

That  is  to  say,  if  an  insect  carries  a  saw,  it  carries 
it  all  the  time.  The  "next  step,"  as  in  the  case  of  the 
male  organ  of  the  nautilus,  is  to  grow  a  tool  and  de- 
tach it. 

Man's  first  inventions  are  fire  and  the  club,  that  is 
to  say  he  detaches  his  digestion,  he  finds  a  means  to  get 
heat  without  releasing  the  calories  of  the  log  by  internal 
combustion  inside  his  own  stomach.  The  invention  of 
the  first  tool  turned  his  mind  (using  this  term  in  the 
full  sense) ;  turned,  let  us  say,  his  "brain"  from  his  own 
body.  No  need  for  greater  antennae,  a  fifth  arm,  etc., 
except,  after  a  lapse,  as  a  tour  de  force,  to  show  that  he 
is  still  lord  of  his  body. 

That  is  to  say  the  langouste's  long  feelers,  all  sorts  of 
extravagances  in  nature  may  be  taken  as  the  result  of  a 
213 


THE  NATURAL 

it*,?*** 

.  •  single  gush  of  thought.  A  single  out-push  of  a  demand, 
made  by  a  spermatic  sea  of  sufficient  energy  to  cast  such 
a  form.  To  cast  it  as  one  electric  pole  will  cast  a  spark 
to  another.  To  exteriorize.  Sometimes  to  act  in  this 
with  more  enthusiasm  than  caution. 

Let  us  say  quite  simply  that  light  is  a  projection  from 
the  luminous  fluid,  from  the  energy  that  is  in  the  brain, 
down  along  the  nerve  cords  which  receive  certain  vibra- 
tions in  the  eye.  Let  us  suppose  man  capable  of  exteri- 
orizing a  new  organ,  horn,  halo,  Eye  of  Horus.  Given  a 
brain  of  this  power,  comes  the  question,  what  organ,  and 
to  what  purpose? 

Turning  to  folk-lore,  we  have  Frazer  on  horned  gods, 
we  have  Egyptian  statues,  generally  supposed  to  be 
"symbols,"  of  cat-headed  and  ibis-headed  gods.  Now  in 
a  primitive  community,  a  man,  a  volontaire,  might  risk 
it.  He  might  want  prestige,  authority,  want  them  enough 
to  grow  horns  and  claim  a  divine  heritage,  or  to  grow 
a  cat  head;  Greek  philosophy  would  have  smiled  at 
him,  would  have  deprecated  his  ostentation.  With  primi- 
tive man  he  would  have  risked  a  good  deal,  he  would 
have  been  deified,  or  crucified,  or  possibly  both.  Today 
he  would  be  caught  for  a  circus. 

One  does  not  assert  that  cat-headed  gods  appeared  in 
Egypt  after  the  third  dynasty;  the  country  had  a  long 
memory  and  such  a  phenomenon  would  have  made  some 
stir  in  the  valley.  The  horned  god  would  appear  to  have 
persisted,  and  the  immensely  high  head  of  the  Chinese 
contemplative  as  shown  in  art  and  the  China  images  is 
another  stray  grain  of  tradition. 

But  man  goes  on  making  new  faculties,  or  forgetting 
214 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

old  ones.  That  is  to  say  you  have  all  sorts  of  aptitudes 
developed  without  external  change,  which  in  an  earlier 
biological  state  would  possibly  have  found  carnal  ex- 
pression. You  have  every  exploited  "hyper-aesthesia," 
i.e.,  every  new  form  of  genius,  from  the  faculty  of  hearing 
four  parts  in  a  fugue  perfectly,  to  the  ear  for  money  (vide 
Henry  James  in  "The  Ivory  Tower"  the  passages  on  Mr. 
Gaw).  Here  I  only  amplify  what  Gourmont  has  indi- 
cated in  Chapter  XX.  You  have  the  visualizing  sense, 
the  "stretch"  of  imagination,  the  mystics, — for  what  there 
is  to  them — Santa  Theresa  who  "saw"  the  microcosmos, 
hell,  heaven,  purgatory  complete,  "the  size  of  a  walnut;" 
and  you  have  Mr.  W.,  a  wool-broker  in  London,  who 
suddenly  at  3  a.  m.  visualizes  the  whole  of  his  letter- 
file,  three  hundred  folios;  he  sees  and  reads  particularly 
the  letter  at  folder  171,  but  he  sees  simultaneously  the 
entire  contents  of  the  file,  the  whole  thing  about  the 
size  of  two  lumps  of  domino  sugar  laid  flat  side  to  flat 
side. 

Remains  precisely  the  question:  man  feeling  this  pro- 
tean capacity  to  grow  a  new  organ:  what  organ?  Or 
new  faculty;  what  faculty? 

His  first  renunciation,  flight,  he  has  regained,  almost 
as  if  the  renunciation,  so  recent  in  terms  of  biology,  had 
been  committed  in  foresight.  I  Instinct  conserves  only  the 
"useful"  gestures.  Air  provides  little  nourishment,  and 
anyhow  the  first  great  pleasure  surrendered,  the  simple 
ambition  to  mount  the  air  has  been  regained  and  regrati- 
fied.  Water  was  never  surrendered,  man  with  sub- 
aqueous yearnings  is  still,  given  a  knife,  the  shark's  van- 
quisher. 

215 


THE  NATURAL 

The  new  faculty?  Without  then  the  ostentation  of  an 
organ.  Will?  The  hypnotist  has  shown  the  vanity  and 
Blake  the  inutility  of  willing  trifles,  and  black  magic 
its  futility.  The  telepathic  faculty?  In  the  first  place 
is  it  new?  Have  not  travellers  always  told  cock  and 
bull  stories  about  its  existence  in  savage  Africa?  Is  it 
not  a  faculty  that  man  has  given  up,  if  not  as  useless,  at 
any  rate  as  of  a  very  limited  use,  a  distraction,  more 
bother  than  it  is  worth?  Lacking  a  localizing  sense, 
the  savage  knowing,  if  he  does,  what  happens  "some- 
where" else,  but  never  knowing  quite  where.  The  faculty 
was  perhaps  not  worth  the  damage  it  does  to  concentra- 
tion of  mind  on  some  useful  subject.  "Instinct  preserves 
the  useful  gestures." 

Take  it  that  what  man  wants  is  a  capacity  for  clearer 
understanding,  or  for  physical  refreshment  and  vigour, 
are  not  these  precisely  the  faculties  he  is  forever  hammer- 
ing at,  perhaps  stupidly?  Muscularly  he  goes  slowly, 
athletic  records  being  constantly  worn  down  by  milli- 
metres and  seconds. 

I  appear  to  have  thrown  down  bits  of  my  note  some- 
what at  random;  let  me  return  to  physiology.  People 
were  long  ignorant  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood;  that 
known,  they  appeared  to  think  the  nerves  stationary; 
Gourmont  speaks  of  "circulation  nerveuse,"  but  many 
people  still  consider  the  nerve  as  at  most  a  telegraph 
wire,  simply  because  it  does  not  bleed  visibly  when  cut. 
The  current  is  "interrupted."  The  school  books  of 
twenty  years  ago  were  rather  vague  about  lymph,  and 
various  glands  still  baffle  physicians.  I  have  not  seen  the 
suggestion  that  some  of  them  may  serve  rather  as  fuses 
216 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

in  an  electric  system,  to  prevent  short  circuits,  or  in 
some  variant  or  allotropic  form.  The  spermatozoide  is, 
I  take  it,  regarded  as  a  sort  of  quintessence;  the  brain  is 
also  a  quintessence,  or  at  least  "in  rapport  with"  all  parts 
of  the  body;  the  single  spermatozoide  demands  simply 
that  the  ovule  shall  construct  a  human  being,  the  sus- 
pended spermatozoide  (if  my  wild  shot  rings  the  target 
bell)  is  ready  to  dispense  with,  in  the  literal  sense,  in- 
carnation, en-fleshment.  Shall  we  postulate  the  mass  of 
spermatozoides,  first  accumulated  in  suspense,  then  spe- 
cialized? 

Three  channels,  hell,  purgatory,  heaven,  if  one  wants 
to  follow  yet  another  terminology:  digestive  excretion, 
incarnation,  freedom  in  the  imagination,  i.e.,  cast  into 
an  exterior  formlessness,  or  into  form  material,  or  merely 
imaginative  visually  or  perhaps  musically  or  perhaps 
fixed  in  some  other  sensuous  dimension,  even  of  taste 
or  odour  (there  have  been  perhaps  creative  cooks  and 
perfumers?). 

The  dead  laborious  compilation  and  comparison  of 
other  men's  dead  images,  all  this  is  mere  labour,  not 
the  spermatozoic  act  of  the  brain. 

Woman,  the  conservator,  the  inheritor  of  past  gestures, 
clever,  practical,  as  Gourmont  says,  not  inventive,  al- 
ways the  best  disciple  of  any  inventor,  has  been  always 
the  enemy  of  the  dead  or  laborious  form  of  compilation, 
abstraction. 

Not  considering  the  process  ended;  taking  the  indi- 
vidual genius  as  the  man  in  whom  the  new  access,  the 
new  superfluity  of  spermatozoic  pressure  (quantitative  • 
and  qualitative)  up-shoots  into  the  brain,  alluvial  Nile- 
217 


THE  NATURAL 

flood,  bringing  new  crops,  new  invention.  And  as  Gour- 
mont  says,  there  is  only  reasoning  where  there  is  initial 
error,  i.e.,  weakness  of  the  spurt,  wandering  search. 

In  no  case  can  it  be  a  question  of  mere  animal  quantity 
of  sperm.  You  have  the  man  who  wears  himself  out  and 
weakens  his  brain,  echo  of  the  orang,  obviously  not 
the  talented  sieve;  you  have  the  contrasted  case  in  the 
type  of  man  who  really  can  not  work  until  he  has  relieved 
the  pressure  on  his  spermatic  canals. 

This  is  a  question  of  physiology,  it  is  not  a  question 
of  morals  and  sociology.  Given  the  spermatozoic  thought, 
the  two  great  seas  of  fecundative  matter,  the  brain  lobes, 
mutually  magnetized,  luminous  in  their  own  knowledge 
of  their  being;  whether  they  may  be  expected  to  seek 
exterior  "luxuria,"  or  whether  they  are  going  to  repeat 
Augustine  hymns,  is  not  in  my  jurisdiction.  An  exterior 
paradise  might  not  allure  them  "La  betise  humaine  est 
la  seule  chose  qui  donne  une  idee  de  1'infini,"  says  Renan, 
and  Gourmont  has  quoted  him,  and  all  flesh  is  grass,  a 
superior  grass. 

It  remains  that  man  has  for  centuries  nibbled  at  this 
idea  of  connection,  intimate  connection  between  his  sperm 
and  his  cerebration,  the  ascetic  has  tried  to  withhold  all 
his  sperm,  the  lure,  the  ignis  fatuus  perhaps,  of  wanting 
to  super-think;  the  dope-fiend  has  tried  opium  and  every 
inferior  to  Bacchus,  to  get  an  extra  kick  out  of  the  organ, 
the  mystics  have  sought  the  gleam  in  the  tavern,  Helen 
of  Tyre,  priestesses  in  the  temple  of  Venus,  in  Indian 
temples,  stray  priestesses  in  the  streets,  un-uprootable 
custom,  and  probably  with  a  basis  of  sanity.  A  sense 
of  balance  might  show  that  asceticism  means  either  a 
218 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

drought  or  a  crowding.  The  liquid  solution  must  be 
kept  at  right  consistency;  one  would  say  the  due  pro- 
portion of  liquid  to  viscous  particles,  a  good  circulation; 
the  actual  quality  of  the  sieve  or  separator,  counting  per- 
haps most  of  all;  the  balance  of  ejector  and  retentive 
media. 

Perhaps  the  clue  is  in  Propertius  after  all: 
Ingenium  nobis  ipsa  puella  fecit. 

There  is  the  whole  of  the  Xllth  century  love  cult,  and 
Dante's  metaphysics  a  little  to  one  side,  and  Gourmont's 
Latin  Mystique;  and  for  image-making  both  Fenollosa 
on  "The  Chinese  Written  Character,"  and  the  paragraphs 
in  "Le  Probleme  du  Style."  At  any  rate  the  quarrel  be- 
tween cerebralist  and  viveur  and  ignorantist  ends,  if 
the  brain  is  thus  conceived  not  as  a  separate  and  desic- 
cated organ,  but  as  the  very  fluid  of  life  itself. 

EZRA  POUND 
June  21,  1921. 


219 


THE  NATURAL 


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O.  Beccari,  Les  Cabanes  et  les  jardins  de  1'Amblyornis; 
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E.  Blanchard,  Metamorphoses,  moeurs  et  instinct  des  in- 
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Bonnet,  Considerations  sur  les  corps  organises;  Amster- 
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Brehm,  Les  Mammiferes;  Les  Oiseaux;  Les  Reptiles  et 
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J.  Chatin,  Organes  de  nutrition  et  de  reproduction  chez 
les  vertebres;  Chez  les  invertebres.  Paris,  1900,  2 
vols.  in  1 2  mo. 

Darwin,  La  Descendance  de  Phomme  et  la  selection  sexu- 
dle.  Paris,  s.  d.  in  8vo. 

De  Paw,  Recherches  philosophiques  sur  les  Americains. 
Berlin,  1768. 

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PHILOSOPHY  OF  LOVE 

D'Orbigny,   Dictionnaire  universe!  dlristoire  naturelle. 

Paris,  1839-49,  24  vols.  in  8vo. 
J.  H.  Fabre,  Souvenirs  entomologiques,  Etudes  sur  Pin- 

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F.  C.  Forberg,  Antonii  Panormitae  Hermaphroditus,  pri- 
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generate  des  sciences,  15.  Feb.,  1902. 
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Paris,  1833-39.     9  vols.  in  4. 
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1810,  in  8vo. 
Dr.  Issaurat,  Le  Sinus  Uro-genital,  son  developpement, 

ses  anomalies.     Paris,  1888,  in  8vo. 
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1900,  in  8vo. 
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scientifique,  21  March,  1903. 

F.  LeDantec,  La  Sexualite.    Paris,  s.  d.  Scientia,  No.  2. 
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ethnologic  de  Pamour.     Paris,  1886,  in  -18. 
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